


The Widening Gyre

by Dillian



Series: The AU Where Loki is an Avenger [1]
Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Comics), Thor (Movies), Thor: Tales of Asgard
Genre: ...As much, Amora wants power, Gen, Navajo Tradition, New Mexico, Shiprock NM, The Avengers want to stop her, This time Loki's not the bad guy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-07
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-15 19:45:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 42,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/531022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dillian/pseuds/Dillian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Fury gets word of seismic changes, emanating from the sacred mountain called Shiprock, he calls for the Avengers to investigate.  They find the cause of the changes, but can they bring balance back to Midgard, before all the Nine Realms have been destabilized?  And, when Thor asks for his brother's help, will Loki give it?</p><p>All over the world, there are myths telling of the necessary balance between order and chaos.  This tale postulates that these legends represent a real balance, and that they exist throughout the Nine Realms.  It draws on the Navajo tradition, of the need for balance between the female, "hozho" powers and the chaotic male,"nayee".</p><p>It is an action-story, not a love story, and the most important relationships in it are platonic ones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Amora is not bothered by the ghosts.

_Turning and turning in the widening gyre_  
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;  
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;  
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...  
\--- William Butler Yeats 

Towering above the flat desert land surrounding it is a peak of jagged stone. Rough spears climb to the top, where two sharp outcroppings come together in the form of folded hands, or the wings of some giant, uncouth bird. This is Shiprock, or as the natives call it, the “ _rock with wings._ ” Legend has it that life began on this place. The first Midgardians, brought here by a great bird, lived atop the peak, going down to the flat land below only to work their crops. Then lightning struck. The men were stranded down in the fields, the women and children were left to starve at the top of the peak. To this very day, so say the natives, it is dangerous to climb Shiprock, for fear of disturbing the ghosts who haunt it.

She has seen these ghosts. Poor pitiful residue of mortals lost before their time: They are no threat, like the Disir of her own Realm, but merely pathetic remnants, wanting only to hear word of the fate of their loved ones. She ignores them, and their soft, whispered pleas, that might almost be the wind brushing past her ears. She is not here for them, but for the power that rests in this place.

Local law is that no one is allowed on this peak, but what cares she for law? If any came here, they would not find her; if anyone looks, they will not see her. She came from across the Realms, drawn here by power tangibly strong, power she can use to claim her rightful place in the Realms again, the place the All-Father denied her. All it will take... – Now that she is here, she moves about on the mountain peak, touching, _smelling_ almost, until she finds where the power is strongest. – ...All it will take is to touch here, and to pull on the connections right here. She feels the balance shifting, and she is pleased. The equilibrium, what they call the “hozho power” in this place, has been altered. It will build, and soon all the Nine Realms will lose their usual places. They will reconfigure and, if her research is correct, this time Midgard will stand at the top. And who will rule the Nine Realms then? Who but the best and only spell-caster in Midgard; who but Amora?


	2. Avengers, Assemble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Fury gets word of the changes, and Jane Foster explains them to the others.

Fury's message finds Bruce Banner at work again where he feels happiest, bringing medical care to people forgotten by the rest of the world. With the Avengers Initiative in place, he now has SHIELD protection; he will not be sought by other government agencies, at least for as long as Fury deems him useful. After that, well then it will be time to find a place where he can hide again. For now though, he is still in the country. Stark talked to him: “If you really want to work with the poor... – And I don't know why you would. Just say the word and there's a place at Stark Enterprises with your name on it. – But if you do, you don't have to go off to some third world country to do it. There's plenty of people who need help right here in America. And besides,” with a look of appeal that's only half-faked if he knows Stark, “we're friends now. I'll miss you if you go.”

And heaven forbid Tony Stark should not have everything he wants. Maybe it's the appeal that makes his mind up for him, or maybe it's just that now that he's spending a little time in America for the first time in years, Banner's horrified by how much poverty and neglect he finds here. He's found the place he'll work for now though. He's got a storefront medical office, and a desperate population of patients, in a homeless encampment near the railroad tracks in Houston.

It's here that the message reaches him. He is with a patient, a beautiful little girl, mangled after she tried to get rid of the baby a rapist put in her. Everyone knows they are not allowed to interrupt during an examination, so when his nurse walks in without even knocking, he knows something important is going on.

“There's some men.” She looks frightened. “They want to see you.”

“Policemen?” The terrified squeak comes from the examining table. Apparently his patient's anesthesia is not as deep as he'd thought.

“ _Soldiers,_ ” the nurse says, and then she steps away, and four uniformed SHIELD personnel stand in the doorway.

The debriefing is to be held at the Stark Tower. Banner has just enough time to finish caring for his patient. He leaves notes for his nurse telling her how to help the worst of the cases still in the waiting room, then allows himself to be hustled aboard the jet Fury has sent for him. – It amuses him to see that this time he _hasn't_ been given the one with the big Hulk-cage. Apparently the Other Guy's a valued member of the team these days. – It is a short flight at supersonic speeds, and he finds himself in the penthouse (repaired now) again, and walking in to see Stark, Rogers, and Thor at the dining room table, while Fury talks to them.

“Friend Banner!” Thor is up and across the room to greet him with a slap on the shoulder that feels like it could break bones. Banner stumbles. -- The Other Guy might be able to stand up under such treatment, but he's how much smaller? And weaker by how much? -- “It’s good to see you again,” Thor crows. “Come, sit down, have some coffee!”

“It’s good to see you again too.” This must be important, if Thor's here. He got the impression last time that it's not easy for men to transport themselves to and from Asgard right now. The Einstein-Rosen bridge, what they call the Bifrost, has been broken, and... Didn't Thor have to use the Tesseract when he took Loki back to be punished? 

“Coffee?” Stark waves from his place at the end of the table. “Hell, have a donut. – Have two, if Thor's left any. Only the best for my friend, the other super-genius on the team.”

Banner sees Rogers roll his eyes. He can't help rolling his own too, but he doesn't really mind. These men are his friends, and it's the first time in a long time that he's had anyone to call friends. He sits, takes some coffee, and contents himself _without_ a donut, since there aren't any left.

“Banner,” Fury acknowledges him with just a nod. “Glad you could make it. As I was saying, I received communication from one of SHIELD's partner-organizations recently. -- You all know Jane Foster I hope?”

“Lady Jane.” Thor smiles. “I know her well.”

“Her work on the Einstein-Rosen Bridge.” Stark smiles as well. “Ground-breaking. A good researcher, and a very intelligent woman.”

“And not hard on the eyes,” Rogers puts in, then colors as the others turn to look at him.

“Hey, give the guy a break,” Stark says. “What, you think they didn't have sex in the olden-days?” He looks at Banner. “You've heard of her, right?”

Banner has. He's kept himself busy, too busy to read much theoretical physics, but the Bridge made it into the mainstream news after the Destroyer-attack in New Mexico. “I thought the Bridge was destroyed.”

Fury nods, looking pleased. “Exactly. And according to our intelligence, it hasn't been rebuilt yet.” – He looks at Thor, who nods, confirming this. – “It's not the sum-total of Dr. Foster's research. She's back in New Mexico, and she's tracking... --Ah, I don't know the technical terms exactly... Er, _ground vibrations_?”

“Zero-point energies?” Stark speaks up at once. “Planetary fluctuations?”

“Yeah,” Fury says, “those. Listen, the technical terms don't really matter. Anyway, what she says, is that there's a change in how the Earth is moving. Things aren't reacting right. She says there's evidence that it's a _someone_ who's causing it, these aren't normal changes.”

“And that's where we come in, right?” Rogers sounds like he's ready for orders.

Fury nods. “I've got the two brains of the outfit here.” He looks at Stark and Banner. Turning to Rogers, “I've got you here to provide muscle,” he says. Then to Thor: “You're here because Dr. Foster says there's evidence this is being caused by” – His face puckers as he says it. – “ _magic_. You're the only one of us who knows anything about that.”

“Well I used to be pretty good at card tricks...” Rogers falters to silence as Fury glares at him.

“I want you four in New Mexico soonest,” the Director says. “Go in the jet, even you, Tony. Take the suit, of course. You'll meet with Dr. Foster. She'll brief you on the situation.”

The flight to New Mexico gives just enough time to go over the documents Dr. Foster has sent. Banner stands to look at the holo-charts, with Stark at his side. Her records show a steady pattern for Earth's magnetic resonances for all the time she's been in New Mexico. Then, about a month ago, the pattern starts changing.

“It's centered in New Mexico, look.” Stark flips to another chart, this one from a researcher in Maine. “And look,” as he shows data from the University of Iowa.

“New Mexico.” Rogers is still in his seat. Any computers are still difficult for him, not having grown up with them as he has, but he won't even look at the holo-charts. He says in his day, screens were screens, not pieces of glass with pictures inside them. “The government had a project in New Mexico during the War, I heard people talking about it while they were working on me.”

“The Manhattan Project,” Stark says. “My dad had a hand in that one too. There was a Stark patent on Fat Boy, and that thing on the Bikini Atoll? It was totally ours. That was in Albuquerque, in central New Mexico. This is a whole different area. – Still, the whole place has to be riddled with fallout, who knows how many failed experiments, bits of old bombs the Army couldn't be bothered to clean away. This thing could be related.”

Banner shakes his head. “You know I've got no reason to trust the government, but I don't buy that leftovers from 70-year old experiments are just starting to cause trouble. Didn't Director Fury say something about magic?”

“He did.” Thor frowns, looking uncomfortable.

“You're kind of his go-to guy for that any more, aren't you?” Stark says. “It's really more your brother's specialty though, isn't it?”

“Do _not_ ” – Thor isn't just uncomfortable now, he's downright upset. Whatever happened when he took Loki back to Asgard, it seems to have been painful. – “Do not,” he takes a deep breath and continues, his voice calmer, “talk about my brother. Loki is in Asgard,” he says. “He is being punished for his crimes. In the meantime, I have dealt with spellcasters. I can recognize magic when I see it. If the Lady Jane thinks she sees evidence of magic here, I am very sure she is right.”

\--------------------

They're meeting Dr. Foster at a coffee shop in Gallup, some twenty miles from where she does her research. “Quaint place, isn't it?” Stark looks at the dusty row of buildings, the decaying hotels further down the road. “Route 66 Cafe, Route 66 Motel, Route 66 Gift Shop. – Anyone else noticing a pattern here?”

“Route 66?” Rogers smiles. “Is that still around?”

“Barely,” Banner says. “After World War II, President Eisenhower started work on a new cross-country highway system that re-routed most of it. These old towns in the Southwest just dried up and decayed. They were like ghost towns until a few years ago when a few people started to figure out that maybe going across country and not seeing anything along the way wasn't really a vacation.”

“You know _Cars_?” Stark says.

Rogers just looks at him.

“Pixar. Great studio. Real innovators in computer animation. Cute little picture with a sappy ending, that takes place right around here. – Oh _hello_ , Dr. Foster!”

Dr. Foster greets each of them with a shake of the hand and a warm smile. She greets Thor with a hug. “I thought you might be hungry after your trip.” She nods toward the restaurant. “Shall we have some lunch while we talk?”

“Great, yeah, sure,” Stark says as they're entering. “Yeah, I really want a slab of meatloaf, or – What is is they serve in places like this? – Or a chikin frahhed steak.”

“Yeah.” Dr. Foster laughs. “You don't know New Mexico very well, Mr. Stark.”

Lunch is enchiladas, red and green, with tall glasses of iced tea that are necessary to cool the burn from the food. “The chiles are locally grown,” she says. “New Mexicans are very proud of their chiles.”

Stark polishes off the food. They eat their food hot in California where he lives, too. Thor does well enough, apparently his demigod's strength allows him to withstand painful levels of hotness, as well as other physical challenges. Banner and Rogers are the ones who lag behind. They pick at the food, so hot it kills Banner's tastebuds after just one bite, and make most of their meal off the fried sopapillas and honey that are served alongside. 

When everyone is done, it is time to talk about business.

“I trust you all familiarized yourselves with the data I send you?” Jane cradles a mug of coffee, the scent rising in steam past her face. The table's cleared, and the restaurant is emptying out, this late after lunch. As long as they’re spilling classified information, they can talk all they want.

“It's a new pattern, isn't it?” Banner comments. 

Jane nods. “I wasn't even tracking those resonances. I just took the readings to provide background data for my research.” A soft, self-amused laugh. “It was Darcy who pointed the changes out to me,” she says, “and at first I just told her to get back to what she was supposed to be doing.”

“Miss Darcy.” Thor grins. “She has a good mind for noticing odd details.”

“Sounds like a classic case of ADHD.” Stark's been talking to the server. Apparently it seems a huge imposition to him, that a man can't get a beer at this restaurant. Now he's back in the conversation. “Poor organization, lack of follow-through, difficulty keeping focus on the point of central importance. It's a blessing and a curse, because of course you notice a lot that the more focused people around you might miss. – So Dr. Foster, Fury says you suspect there's magic involved in this? Why?”

“I don't suspect _magic_. Director Fury must have misunderstood. What I told him,” Jane clarifies, “is that the source of the change didn't seem to come from anything on Earth. – Thor, you remember when you were here before? Remember, I showed you the readings, the evidence I had for the Einstein-Rosen bridge? You looked at them and then you said it sounded like the” --

“Like the Bifrost.” Thor nods. “So you're saying these new 'readings' sound like they are also coming from Asgard?”

“From something Asgardian,” Jane says. “You may not know it Thor, but you and your people give off a different magnetic resonance than the people of Earth. It's a small difference, and of course you have to be doing the readings to find it.” She gives a soft laugh. “I remember when we finally got to see your file from the ER, like a month after you were back in Asgard. Everything about you was running a lot faster and a lot hotter than the doctor expected. He actually sent a nurse back, she was supposed to do the vitals all over again, but of course you were out by then. Your brother's the same way,” she adds. “Fury had the cage on the heli-carrier rigged to take readings of heart rate, blood-pressure, things that have been linked” – A glance at Banner. – “I'm sorry Dr. Banner. – Things that have been linked to manifestation of the Hulk. Loki's readings were off-the-chart high on everything. The only difference from you, Thor, was that his basal temperature was abnormally low.”

“Well there's a reason for that,” Thor says.

“I'm sure.” –

“Listen,” Stark interrupts. “Not that it isn't fascinating to hear all about Loki's _basal readings_ and all that, but what's the point? You started checking, and you think you've detected evidence of another Asgardian in the area. But what told you to check? What made you think it might be an Asgardian in the first place?”

“Because the magnetic resonances out of Shiprock should have remained stable. They have been stable. There's records going back to the 1930's at the University of New Mexico: The equipment was primitive back then, but it worked. The resonances are the same for the first year they started recording them, 1935, and they're the same up through the middle of this year. Nuclear testing didn't change them, and seismic activity never did. Whatever did, it was completely new and strange. And after watching the changes that Thor brought, my hypothesis was that they might be similarly sourced. – At first I suspected his brother.”

“Loki?” Rogers looks at Thor. “Could your brother be doing this?” he says. “I know he's supposed to be on Asgard, but could he have gotten out?”

“Impossible.” Thor's voice tenses again, as it's been doing when he talks about his brother. Loki is his Other Guy, it occurs to Banner suddenly: He's like a part of him, and yet he's uncontrollable. “My brother is confined,” he says. “If you knew my father, you'd know how impossible it is that he should escape.”

An awkward silence falls. Thor's words are clear enough, but their memories of what happened in Manhattan are still fresh. The city is still rebuilding from the damage of his assault with the Chitauri army. Then Rogers speaks.

“I'd still feel safer if we could rule him out completely.”

“Enough!” Thor raises his fist. He looks like he's about to pound the table, but then he reconsiders, maybe thinking about the damage he'll do. Banner knows those reconsiderations. He feels for anyone else who has to make them. My brother is confined,” he says. “Question beyond that, and you are questioning the All-Father.” He takes a deep breath, then turns to Dr. Foster. “Lady Jane, you spoke of getting readings like my bro... – Ah like my own. And the source for those readings, where was that?

“They came from Shiprock. – It's a mountain, about 50 miles north of here. I wanted to go up and check it out, but it's sacred to the Navajo people. You have to get a special permit to climb there. And the Asgardian-type readings were just the one time. The other changes have been continuing, and getting stronger.” 

“So we've still got changes, but the Asgardian that made them could be anywhere now?” Rogers is thinking out loud. “How did we find Loki last time?”

“Well first he wanted to be found,” Stark says. “He pretty much gave himself to us the first time. After that, it was my brilliant deductive skills that discovered where he would open the Portal, if I'm remembering right.” He smirks.

Banner's been quiet. He's usually quieter than the others around him. It helps keep him calm. But he's been thinking. “Loki went where the power was strongest,” he says. “That's what I remember. Dr. Selvig said he needed the power from Stark Tower to activate the Tesseract. So maybe our hypothetical Asgardian this time will also be where...”

“Where the power is strongest,” Stark finishes his sentence. “Of course he will, it only makes sense. – Dr. Foster, we have to stake out that mountain. It's only a matter of time before our Asgardian perp goes back there.” He snorts a short laugh. “Of course we could all be talking out our asses at this point. It's not like we have that much to go on. I vote we try this out for a couple of days then, if we can't catch him that way, we'll get in touch with SHIELD. They've got the technology to scan for Asgardian-type readings and find our perp that way.”

“I hope it won't come to that,” Rogers says. “It seems unfair.” He frowns, his face furrowed with guilt. “Oh well, hopefully we'll catch the guy this way. – So I guess we'll be sleeping rough for a couple days?” He looks at Dr. Foster. “Shiprock is out in the middle of nowhere, right?


	3. Their Vigil in the Desert

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Thor, although clueless about some things, is well aware that he likes marshmallows.

“Out in the middle of nowhere” doesn't begin to describe the area around the sacred mountain. The western New Mexico desert stretches in all directions, empty and pitiless under the late September sun. The land around here is flat, dotted with mountains like Shiprock, mountains that aren't part of a range, but more like huge, rocky outcroppings. Out here there are no trees, – There's no vegetation at all, except for a little scrubby stuff growing near to the ground. – and the only shady place where they can park their RV is close to the mountain itself.

Banner and Stark help Dr. Foster set up the equipment while Thor and Rogers make camp. “I'm not going to stay out here with you tonight.” Dr. Foster colors a little. Banner sees her eyes flick toward Stark, who immediately responds, sounding hurt.

“I don't know what you've heard about me, but believe it or not, I can be a perfect gentleman when I want to be.”

She just colors more deeply. “I think there's no need for me to spend the night out here with four men,” she says, “when there are two scientists here who are just as capable of tracking the readings as I am.”

“No seriously.” Only Stark, Banner thinks, could keep push-push-pushing at someone's sensitive spots, and setting up complex machinery at the same time. “I'm really quite nice, you can ask Pepper. – I know you're Thor's anyway,” he says. “I wouldn't dream of making a move.”

Dr Foster mutters something about _Thor's_ not knowing she's his, and colors even more deeply, but when she looks up at Stark, her blue eyes are clear and direct. “Your outdated notions about women belonging to men are all very interesting, Mr. Stark” –

“Tony.” –

“ _Mr. Stark,_ ” she continues, “but I'm going back to Gallup tonight. I was hoping you and Dr. Banner would agree to monitor the equipment, but if you're going to make a fuss about it, there's still time for me to teach Mr. Rogers what to do. – Or Thor,” she adds, coloring a little again.

They monitor the equipment. It's set up inside a second, smaller RV, that gets the favored spot deepest in the shade of the mountain. “You need to check the readings on the hour and the half-hour, 24-7.” 

Banner and Stark nod their agreement. The stuffy little RV doesn't look very comfortable for sleeping, but the other one's already going to be pretty full, with Thor and Rogers in there. Anyhow, it's just for a couple of nights. They return outside and take a spot beside the campfire Thor's built, and take one of the wieners Rogers has toasted for their dinner. 

“So the upshot of it is, we're waiting to see if an Asgardian's blood pressure and temperature show up in the readings.” Stark grimaces, taking the half-burnt wiener and dry bun Rogers hands him. Billionaire playboy Tony Stark is used to a lot of things, but apparently campfire cooking is not one of them. 

“That seems kind of iffy.” Unthinking, Rogers looks up at Shiprock, looming above them in the gathering darkness. “They must be really sensitive machines to even read that stuff, this far away.”

“Remember what Dr. Foster said about Asgardians?” Banner says. “Their readings are stronger than ours” –

“Like everything else about them,” Stark puts in. –

“That's why we can read them so well from a distance.”

Rogers takes a bite of his hotdog. “Be funny as hell if this guy's on the other side of the planet causing chaos, and we're out here having a sleepover.”

“He will return.” Thor’s eaten three hotdogs. Now he's examining the bag of marshmallows Rogers set out, rather dubiously. “I sense the presence of magic here,” he says. “It’s too subtle for me to see it clearly, I’m not a wielder of magic, but I know it is here.”

“Can you also tell it’s your whacked-out brother’s magic, or someone else’s?”

“Tony,” Rogers says warningly.

But Thor takes no offense. He shakes his head. “I cannot. My knowledge of magic is too limited.”

“Interesting,” Stark comments. “Even with a brother that's a sorcerer?”

Thor nods. He's opened the marshmallows now, tasted them, and apparently found them good, from the way they're disappearing into him. “The tradition of sorcery in Asgard is a women's tradition,” he says. “My mother Frigga brought the ancient wisdom of the Vanir, when she married my father. He learned her secrets and willingly, but besides him it is mostly women who study spellcasting.” He gives a rueful smile. “Father was very surprised that either of his sons wanted to learn the art, much less that he would study under a woman to do it.”

“Sexist bunch, aren't you?” Stark’s found the pack of Budweiser that Rogers brought out. He eyes a can critically, muttering something about _cheap-ass American shit_ , then pops the top and takes a drink.

“We are as our traditions have made us,” Thor says, “just as you yourselves.” He reaches for one of the beers. “My brother studied under the second-best spellcaster in Asgard,” he says, “the Enchantress Amora. The best spellcaster, my father, of course had other duties.”

Rogers has taken a beer too. He opens it, sips. “Any chance it could be this Amora who did this?” he says.

Thor finishes his and takes another. “I do not see how that could be the case.” He swallows deeply, sets the can aside empty. “My brother became interested in Midgard because of me. It is not a realm most of the Aesir have thought about much. And Amora has been banished these many years. I do not know why her attention would go this way.”

This sounds like very good evidence that Loki's involved here. Everyone thinks it, but no one says it. If they're also thinking that their demigod-friend didn't do them any favors by coming to Earth, if his presence was going to lead him, and maybe other psychopathic spellcasters here as well, they keep that to themselves too.


	4. Conflict on the Sacred Mountain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Thor and the Captain are a little _too_ chivalrous, and Banner isn't quite angry enough.

The readings on their machines are stable all that night. They're stable well through the next day. Dr. Foster comes out around midday to check on them, but there's not much to see. They're still running as they should, and they're still giving the same readings they've given all along, the ones that mean Shiprock's empty. She ends up spending most of the afternoon with Thor. Stark spends most of his on the phone with his personal assistant Ms. Potts, telling her what technology to engage, and then having her check the readings over and over.

It's Banner and Rogers that end up in the RV with the equipment. “Nothing much else to do, is there?” Rogers comments. “At least it's cool in here.”

Banner nods. “I've been running the AC on and off all day. The machines need a stable temperature.” It's almost time to check them again, he notes, just a few minutes off from the half-hour. Rogers has brought in a deck of cards, and they've been playing Hearts to lighten the tedium. Now when they're in between sets, he gets up and moves over to the equipment.

A jagged, zig-zag line has replaced the flat, fairly smooth line the heart-rate monitor's been showing since yesterday. Banner feels a surge of excitement. “Something's up there.” He checks the other machines: Heat sensors register a hot spot moving around the top of the mountain, the brain wave monitor shows the electrical pulses that are someone's thought-processes. “Rogers, he's there!”

He's already up out of his seat. “I'll get the others.”

Banner looks back at the machines. There's no camera up on Shiprock, no way to see exactly where their perp is, but he's up there. He wonders if the laws that forbid _climbing_ the sacred mountain also say anything about _flying_ up to the top.

Then Stark's in the RV with him. He shoves in close to the machines. “Let me see the readings.” Jerking a finger toward the door, “Thor's out there,” he says. “He'll fly you up there. I'll suit up after I look at these, and bring the Captain.” He gives a brief grin. “You know when I agreed to join the Avengers, I never thought there'd be so many Asgardians involved.”

Outside, everyone's looking up toward Shiprock. “You'll stay here,” Banner hears Thor telling Dr. Foster.

He sees the keen look of curiosity on her face change to one of irritation. She wants to protest, then she bites the words back and nods. “I'll monitor the machines down here.”

Thor looks to Rogers. “I'll take you up there.” – He's not trying to leave anyone out, Banner thinks, he's just making the necessary choices: The strongest members of the team go up first. – “Friend Bruce, you come when Tony's ready.”

Banner's burning to see what's up there too, – An Asgardian? Loki? – but he nods agreement. He watches as raises his hammer, and Mjolnir flashes fire, powering his and the Captain's flight upward.

He's just making out the red dot that's Thor, landing between the two winglike outcroppings on top of Shiprock, when Stark comes up behind him, already suited up. Banner's not crazy about flying up there with him. What if the Other Guy decides he doesn’t like it and comes out mid-air? There's no time to worry about that though. Stark doesn't ask permission, he just grabs his belt. “Let's go, Doc.” 

One minute they're on the ground, the next minute, Banner sees the ground shooting backward. The suit is fast, and he has to grab to keep his glasses on his face before he even thinks to look upward toward where they're going. When he does, he sees the top of Shiprock coming at them like a traveling shot in a movie. It's ahead of him, then before his mind's processed the view, he's already feeling rough, rocky ground under his feet. 

“Remind me not to travel like that again, Stark.” He grins a little shakily. “It makes the SHIELD jet seem luxurious by comparison.”

Stark opens his visor and grins back. “Don't diss the SHIELD jet. That's Stark technology at its finest.” He looks around at the windswept summit, empty, surprisingly, except for their team. “What the fuck? There’s no one here.” 

“Maybe the equipment's faulty?” Rogers suggests.

Banner shakes his head. There's nothing wrong with any of the machines. The temperature changes, the magnetic resonances, were correctly recorded. But why, then, doesn’t the source of the change show up?

“A good spellcaster can conceal himself from sight,” Thor says. “Many times, I have seen my brother hide his presence for purposes of his own. Before we cast question on the Lady Jane's machines, I think we should determine if there is magic at work here.” He turns a full circle then, raising his voice a little, he calls, “if it’s you, brother, or if it is anyone else, show yourself. Do not hide like a coward!”

“A coward?” There is a soft chuckle, seemingly coming from thin air. Then the air seems to thicken and widen; it seems to become solid, and takes the shape of a woman, standing in their midst as if she’s  
been there the whole time. She's a very beautiful woman, with long blond curls, falling over bare shoulders, and a clingy green gown that shows more than it conceals. She turns around, as if presenting herself for their admiration. Her lips turn up in a wide smile, but her eyes don’t show the same warmth. “I am just a weak woman, Thunderer” she purrs, her voice light yet clearly audible. “Do not tell me such fine warriors as yourselves will judge me for my timidity in your presence?”

Banner tells himself that he's not surprised. He's seen women-fighters before. There's Natasha, and Maria What's-Her-Name, who works so closely with Fury. – And didn't Thor tell them about that woman-warrior he grew up with? The one he called Sif? Is this Sif, he wonders, for a brief, crazy moment. 

Then he hears Thor's voice. “Amora.”

“So glad to see I am remembered.” The woman Amora – A spellcaster, wasn't that what Thor told them about her? She was the one who used to teach his brother? – is very close to Thor. She strokes his cheek with one slender finger, brushes a kiss along his jawline. “That was a very special night we spent together. It is a sweet spot in my memory.”

“That didn't stop you from bedding every other man at the palace.” Thor isn't moving at all. He stands there with Mjolnir clutched loosely in his hand, still looking confused just to see Amora there. “Even my father,” he says, his voice stiff.

“But you were the best.” Another kiss, and then Amora is off, greeting each of the Avengers with similar treatment. “And what a wonderful welcome you give me to Midgard. Not one, but four handsome warriors here to greet me. In truth, I do not know which of you gentlemen I like best.” To Rogers, “your muscles,” she coos, running her finger along a bicep. “So strong! Do you intimidate women with those big, strong muscles of yours?”

“And you must be the scholar of the group.” Now she's by Banner's side, and he feels soft fingers stroking his face under the bows of his glasses. He grabs for them just before she can take them, and she gives him a pout in return. “You don't judge me, do you? For a little touching and teasing?” She kisses his cheek, and he just stands there. How do you respond to something like that? “In truth, I find the rumpled, intelligent type _so very_ attractive, and such a relief, in a world full of muscled strongmen.”

“And what's this?” To his relief, Amora moves away from him. She's sidling up to Stark now, with a pretty look of surprise on her face. A rippling laugh. “Do they keep their warriors, as well as their food, in cans here on Midgard?” She runs admiring fingers along the outer covering of the suit. Stark's got to be seething, Banner thinks. – He hates it when anyone touches the suit. – But his expression is bemused, pleased almost. “This is wizardry beyond my own meagre abilities, to create a golem capable of carrying a man inside it.”

“Amora, why are you here?” Only Thor, among all of them, seems to have kept his head. His voice is stern, and his questions are the ones they all need answers for. “Did you do something to cause the changes the Midgardian scientists have been noticing? What did you do?”

“And were you helped?” Rogers looks around the top of the mountain, apparently scanning for another cloaked sorcerer. “Is Loki here?”

“What, aren't I enough?” Amora's response is to Rogers; she ignores all Thor's questions. “Truly, Loki's overshadowed his teacher, in his skills, and in the darkness of his intentions.” Now looking at Thor, “I heard about your brother's destruction of the Bifrost, Thunderer. – I heard about his true parentage too. Does it make you feel uncomfortable, knowing you slept next to a Frost Giant all through your childhood? Do you ever wonder that he didn't break out and show his true nature earlier?”

“Loki is my brother...”

Amora ignores his words. “The Jotun cannot be trusted,” she tells the rest of them, “and yet Odin took one into his own household, out of shame I hear, after he slew his own father through his neglect.”

“It is not true...”

“I taught Loki when he was very young, and even then he showed himself devious and untrustworthy. – I have heard about how he came here, how he brought an army from beyond the stars and tried to take over your entire realm. And yet when there are changes here, the Thunderer's first thought is to blame me. In truth, these are not bad changes,” she says. “Your realm will not even feel the difference, as the balance between the realms shifts.”

“That's wrong.” It's Stark who speaks first, and it's not until he does speak, that Banner realizes they've all been standing here like statues and letting Amora say whatever she wants. “See we've noticed the changes already,” he says, “and Dr. Foster says they're only getting stronger.”

“And will get stronger still.” Amora wears a very satisfied smile. “Your realm is destined to be at the top of all the Nine Realms, displacing Asgard. – And won't everyone be glad to see _that_ little cluster of bully-boys lose their power? – If you knew the unjustified wars Odin and his father Bor have brought on the other realms... Did your friend Thor ever tell you how he and his brother worked together to start a war with Jotunheimr? – Midgard is set to control all the Nine Realms soon, and I will control Midgard. But you little ants won't notice a difference. I'll leave your petty governments in place and let them pretend they still run things.”

“You sound just like Loki.” Now Rogers has broken her spell over him. He's closing the distance between him and Stark, moving closer and keeping his shield where he can use it. “He talked like that too, all about us being ants, and him being superior to anything here on Earth. – He brought an army. Do you have an army, Amora?”

“I don't need an army,” she purrs. “I know where the power resides, in this world, and I know how to use it.”

“Oh yeah?” In a quick move, Stark grabs both her wrists. “Why don't you show us? Use some now.”

A delightful laugh, and Stark is holding onto nothing. Amora's standing next to Thor, both hand on his shoulders. He turns, grabbing, and she vanishes again. “It's a trick,” he shouts to the others. “I remember when my brother learned it. The last thing you learn is...” Watching, Banner sees Thor grab, seemingly at empty air. He sees his arms tighten, and a moment later, Amora is struggling in his grip. “She's not as good as my brother,” Thor says. “He learned to hid his shadow when he did a displacement spell years ago.” 

The enchantress looks fire at him. “You say that now. Soon I'll have accomplished what Loki failed to do, and what will you say then?”

“You won’t.” That's Stark, and then Rogers interrupts him.

“We'll still say it's wrong even if you do succeed,” he tells her. “`Rearranging the universe is against nature...” – He catches his breath and starts back as she appears next to him before he can finish his sentence.

A staff appears in her hand, and she swings before any of them know what she's going to do, slamming Rogers' shield out of his hands. Banner hears it clang down on the hard-packed, rocky soil, somewhere behind them. He sees Rogers glance backward, just for a moment.”

“Watch out!” Stark yells, and he jumps in front of Rogers just as the green snake that's suddenly right where Amora _was_ , rears and goes at him with its teeth. It snaps, its fangs clanking harmlessly off his metal suit, then dissolves back into the enchantress again.

“Jesus! Is every wizard on Asgard a psycho?” Stark pulls his visor down. “Out of the way, people,” he says, raising his hands to fire a repulsor-blast. 

“No!” Banner grabs his arm. “You can't destroy Shiprock. Its sacred, remember?”

Before Stark can respond, they hear a thud. They swing just in time to see Amora's staff catch Rogers in the stomach, knocking him backward. “Get her,” Stark yells. 

Rogers lunges, fists up. There's a moment when the shot's clear, but unaccountably, he lets it go. Amora's next blow sends him into the weeds twenty feet away.

“What the fuck, Cap?” Before Stark can get his hands up for a repulsor-blast, Banner sees a gold blast from Amora's staff hit him square in the chest. He stumbles backward, momentarily disarmed.

“She's a lady. I was always taught...” Up on his knees, Rogers swings his gaze from one Avenger to the next. “Thor,” – His eyes lock with the Asgardian's. – “a little help here?” But the big warrior stands still, his face troubled and confused. 

“It is my father's place to deliver justice. If I had a way to take her back to Asgard. – If the Bifrost...”

Amora's laughs, a harsh sound, unlike her usual musical tinkle. “You're indestructible, Thunderer, your friend with the shield, I think he is the same. These weak mortals you associate with,” her gaze sweeps Stark and Banner, contempt written on her face, “these I shall kill. I do not think your chivalric notions will allow you to stop me.” She raises her staff, firing off blast after blast straight at the blue light of the reactor in Stark's chest. 

How she's figured out that this is his most vulnerable place, Banner doesn't know, but he watches his friend stagger back. He can stop it, if he can loosen the rage inside him. It ought to be right there, certainly there's enough indignation inside him, at the way his friend is being treated. But the Other Guy usually waits until there's a threat to him personally before he comes out. _Well, that's easy enough to make_ , he thinks and, taking a deep breath, Banner jumps right into the golden beam of the staff's next blast.

It's hard, and what's worse, it's so hot he can feel the synthetic fibers of his shirt melt against his skin. He flies backward and lands ten feet away, rolling over twice before righting himself in the weeds. If it's just enough... If the Other Guy takes it as enough of a threat... – He's learned to appreciate what the Other Guy can do, since the firefight in Manhattan, but he still hasn't learned much about making him come out on-cue.

“Bruce! Dammit!” Stark’s voice comes from far, far away He sounds angry. The heat of Amora’s blast disperses through his body, like electricity, and Banner shivers. But he’s still Bruce Banner. Even this didn't bring the Other Guy out. Groaning, he puts his hands to the ground and tries to lift himself, only to feel a boot tread hard on his neck, pressing him back into the gritty, surface. Above him, he hears Amora's triumphant laugh. Banner groans. He fights to throw Amora off, but he can't. She's an Asgardian, and even Asgardian females possess superhuman strength.

“Help him, for Christ’s sake!” Stark sounds like he’s out of breath, his voice weak, after all the blasts his reactor has received. Banner hears him coming closer, he hears the scurrying sounds of the others' footsteps.

“You’ll witness your friends die, Thunderer.” Amora’s voice is ugly, shrill with anger and triumph at the same time. “This weak one will be the first.” Is she raising her staff? From this angle, he can't tell, but he braces himself for the impact. He hears shouts, a loud “No”, then, finally, a roaring in his ears. The roaring sound of rage.


	5. Conflict Resolved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tony Stark's words come as quite a relief.

He wakes with a bed almost under him, incredibly, back in the trailer he and Stark agreed to share while they were at Shiprock. “That's the Captain's doing.” Stark's in there working on the machines, but he notices right away as soon as Banner stirs. “It was me that found you of course.” -- He's got a screwdriver in his hand. He's working on the wiring... Aren't those wires they just connected the day before? – “I couldn't have gotten the Big Guy into bed though, not even _with_ the suit.”

Rogers put the Other Guy to bed. Banner swallows. He wonders what else was involved besides sheer, brute strength. “The Other Guy...” Did he wreck the machinery, he wants to ask? Did he hurt any of you? What did he destroy? Somewhere at the back of his mind is the question, “where's Amora,” but lying here watching Stark reconnect machines he knows they connected when they first got here, it's not the first question on his mind.

“You should have seen what happened on Shiprock.” Stark's grin looks completely natural, nothing but enjoyment there. “You remember what he did to Loki? – No, you wouldn't, would you,” as he sees Banner shake his head. “Let's just say if I'd been thinking, I could have gotten a video that would have gone viral on Youtube. Big Guy had Amora by the legs. He was flopping her around pretty good. – She was able to get up okay at the end though, and Thor took her back to Asgard. Lucky Odin.” He laughs. “Now he's got two psycho spellcasters to keep an eye on.”

Banner groans. He looks down at his bare body, neatly covered by a blanket, and thinks about Rogers tucking him in. – Tucking the Other Guy in. Then he thinks about what else might have happened, leading up to that part. “The sacred mountain...”

“Don't give the Big Guy too much credit. Even he can't make much of a dent in solid granite. There's a little bit of a crater where Amora landed, but if no one's supposed to climb up there, they'll never even notice...” Relieved of one worry, Banner's looking at Stark's hands on the machinery again. He knows they connected all those yesterday. Stark breaks off when he notices. “Listen, don't worry so much all the time,” he says. “The point is, the Big Guy saved the day. None of us could have done what he did. Amora's back on Asgard where she belongs, no fuss, no muss. – Look outside if you're worried. I guarantee you, the desert looks just like it did before Hulk got hold of it.”

So all he's got to do is hope the Avengers only need the Other Guy's help when they're in the middle of nowhere. _Great_. Banner sits up. He rubs his aching head, marvels a little that it's the only place he seems to have that aches. Whatever else they are, Rogers and Stark are good babysitters for his Other Self... He catches himself. They're good _friends_. 

“Here, have some coffee.” Stark shoves a mug into his hands. Banner drinks. He sits up, grabbing the pair of pants someone (Rogers probably, since they're pressed) left by the bed, and putting them on. Decent again, he walks over to where Stark's still working.

“Let me help you with that.” Up close, he sees most of the machines are disconnected. Jesus Christ, what happened? “I guess I'm responsible for this...”

“What?” Stark looks at Banner, complete surprise on his face. Then understanding dawns. “Ohhh.” He laughs. “You thought Hulk did this? Bruce, my friend, try not to take credit for everything. I'm disconnecting these because we found our Asgardian. We're packing up and heading back to Gallup. Now give me a hand.” He shoves a pair of pliers at him. “I figure we'll catch a late lunch when we get there. Somewhere _with_ an alcohol license this time.”


	6. Loki, Caged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which, whatever his reputation, Thor is still quicker on the uptake than the All-Father.

The cage on Midgard, that was a pretend-imprisonment. He let them catch him, he would have been out again with what he wanted in no time, if his brother – No, if _Thor_ – hadn't interfered. This time though, the imprisonment is real.

Odin can do what the puny mortals cannot. Of course he can, he controls all the Nine Realms. It is his wish that his “son”, his adopted son, who embarrassed him by showing he has a mind of his own, should be confined here in his chambers in the palace. Humiliating. The mortals called him “war criminal”, but to Odin, he is a disobedient child. His place is here, locked in his rooms, until such time as he shows he is sorry. He won't of course, he is _not_ sorry, but apparently they must go through this charade before the All-Father gets around to finding another solution for the problem that is Loki. 

His chambers are not small, but they are all he gets. He can _see_ the outside, the window, tantalizing, still there for him to look out, but he cannot _get to_ the outside. His books are here, but they are books he has read before, detritus from his childhood days, rather than anything that would engage his imagination now. There is no gag, but there is no one to talk to. There are no shackles, but somehow the All-Father has managed to seal his magic without them. Perhaps his chambers are a shackle in themselves. With his quicksilver, sharp mind, the boredom is enough to drive him insane. Sometimes he thinks that he is insane. He catches himself talking, referring to himself in the third person. Is that the first sign of oncoming madness? 

This is worse than any Hel, being powerless like this, closed away and unable to do anything. And the worst part is, there is something going on. He can sense it, the small changes in Asgard’s balance. Soon they will be large ones; already they are growing. He wants to be somewhere where he can investigate. He wants books, he wants his powers. – He wants to talk to someone else, someone who might also have noticed what's happening and shed some light on it. But instead he is here, and he has never felt more helpless.

“So, where's Odin?” He pictures the old man, the _lying_ old man, sitting on his golden throne amid all his golden splendor: He is a cheat and a manipulator, but he is not a fool, and he is a formidable wielder of magic. If Loki can feel these changes, surely he can too. Who is he consulting about this? Who else has even noticed, and who else has the level of abilities that will be needed to deal with whatever's coming? “Can he,” Loki finds himself asking aloud, “dare he talk to the Trickster about this? – To Loki Silvertongue?”

...There, he's doing it again. The silence closes in, and after a while he finds himself talking to it. – Talking to the questions inside his own mind. But this way lies only madness. It is one thing to know there is a threat looming, but to face it with his sanity gone, that he will not do! Loki throws himself down on his bed. He pulls a book to him, a collection of adventure stories from his boyhood that might, at least, occupy some small part of his attention. He wills his mind out of the endless loop of questions, forces himself by sheer will, back toward calm.

\--------------------

“We stopped her, father.” Thor smiles. He thinks of his friends, of the stalwart Captain, of Tony, always sarcastic, always joking, and yet dead-serious whenever Midgard needs his help. He thinks of Bruce, who carries the might of a thousand ogres inside him, and yet manages to wield his force for good.

Odin nods. “The strength of these Midgardians continues to amaze me, son. Truly, there is much that mortals can do on their own, without the assistance of the gods.”

“I help them,” Thor says, “but I am an equal partner with them. Many is the threat I could not have stopped, but for the help of the others.” He falls silent, his father likewise. They sit companionably for a while. Then, “what of Amora?” he asks his father.

“She must be contained.” There is sadness in Odin's voice. “I do not like to do it,” he says, “but banishment did not work. She merely took her machinations to another of the Nine Realms. And I do not have the power to banish her beyond all of them. I have done with her as I did with your brother. I have sealed her in her chambers.” He shakes his head. “I have little hope that she will change.”

“Change”: That reminds him of what Amora said when they were on the sacred mountain. “Father,” Thor speaks up, this is important. Odin looks at him, his face still troubled, his mind still clearly on Amora, the promising sorceress, who chose to walk the crooked path.

“Yes, son?”

“When we were on Shiprock…” Thor pictures it, trying to remember every detail. “Amora said something. She talked about destroying the balance of the Nine Realms.”

A long sigh. The All-Father looks tired. “Everything needs balance, Thor. The Realms, the universe, everything, to beyond the limits of what we know, it all needs balance. Male and female, chaos and order, even good and evil must be in balance. – Did Amora say anything that would tell you what she meant by that, son?”

“She said she would put Midgard in the place of Asgard and rule it herself.”

This time Odin just snorts. “Impossible. It is a dream, a fantasy. There is no way she can do that.”

His father's words are reassuring, but they ring a little hollow. Amora had seemed so sure. She'd spoken as though the change was already in motion.

“It is her ambition that infected your...” Odin breaks off; he doesn’t want to mention Loki, Thor can tell. Finally, “it looks like master and student share the same poisonous dream,” he says, “and both of them are willing to take the crooked path to accomplish it.” Odin looks into the distance, frowning.

His brother's words echo in his mind: _”I, who was and should be King!”_ Was it Amora's ambition that turned his brother's mind, Thor wonders? Did Loki ever need someone else to point him toward ambition and the crooked path? He thinks about his brother and realizes he hasn't visited him since he was sealed in his chambers. Has he any regrets at all? Will he want a visit, after the way they took leave of each other last?

“Father.”

“You can visit Loki as much as you wish .” As always, his father picks up infallibly on his unspoken question. “The seal is set on his chamber. He cannot leave if the door is opened, or do harm if a visitor enters. Go if you want,” he says. “I hope your brother will be willing to see you.”

It is a load off his mind. “Thank you, Father,” Thor says. He moves to rise, thinking the audience over.

“As for Amora,” Odin puts a hand on his arm. “Your advice is well-taken, son. I had noticed a shift in the balance of the Realms, albeit it appeared small and short-lived. After what you have said though, I will continue to watch in case there are more changes.”

\--------------------

His brother's chamber, just a few doors down from his own: How many times has he stood here at the door, Thor thinks, and with no qualms at all about going right in? Now his heart is in his throat just as he touches the latch. The door is unlocked. – As Odin said, the seal restrains only Loki, not any visitors he might have. – It opens easily. Even as it moves under his fingers, Thor is still wondering if he wants to do this. Is it too late to turn away, maybe to wait for a better time? But he can see Loki look up, as the crack of opening widens. It is too late.

Loki is stretched out on his bed with a book in his hands, just as Thor has seen him so many times before. His brow is tight, his lips tight in an expression that looks unhappy. This too, is nothing new. He looks up as Thor enters, his green eyes meeting his brother's blue ones.

“Thunderer.” His voice is cold. “Have you come to look at the monkey in the zoo?” Loki sits up. His lips curve upward in a sarcastic smile, but the expression of unhappiness in his eyes doesn't change. “A Midgardian reference,” he says. “Congratulate me on how much I have learned about your pet Realm.”

Thor frowns. Loki's automatic contempt for anything weaker than himself. Where did he learn it from? But he will not let his visit be ruined so easily. As he has done so many times before, Thor sits down in the chair at his brother's desk. “Are you well, brother? Are you comfortable here?”

“I am closed away like an animal,” Loki says, “and, like an animal, I am deprived of intellectual stimulation, if you would like to call that comfort.” He sets his book aside. At least he is going to give Thor his attention. “An animal gets companionship. I have not, until now. I hear you captured Amora on Midgard. Is she to be given to me as a my companion-monkey?”

Loki knows about Amora? “How did you know...”

“Please.” Loki wears a faint smile. It pleases him, Thor thinks, as it always did, that he can surprise his brother. “Odin can stop me from doing things. He cannot stop me _knowing_ things.” His green eyes grow distant. “I felt the change in the balance of the Realms,” he says, “and I felt when the source of the change was located. The change continues, Thunderer. You did not stop it when you stopped Amora.”

“She’s sealed in her chambers, just like you,” Thor blurts out, immediately regretting his choice of word, when he sees Loki’s eyes light with a fiery, angry glare. He swallows, before finishing his thought. “What more can she possibly do?”

“Oho, so I was right. You have caged both of us.” The words are pure bitterness. Loki's eyes flame, his voice comes out strangled and angry-sounding. “And yet Odin in his infinite mercy, keeps each of us alone in solitary splendor. He will see two mad ghosts, when he finally sees fit to make a visit.”

What is this, some twisted cry for help? Is his brother really admitting to loneliness? “Brother, I...” – How is it that Loki, who is never in the right himself, always leaves him feeling he is in the wrong? – “You are allowed visitors,” Thor says.

“Then it is because none cares, that no one has come.” Loki turns away. “Indeed I was wrong to judge the All-Father so quickly. All hail Odin the Merciful.” There is a long silence, Loki not speaking, and Thor not knowing what he can say to him.

Then Loki turns back. “Amora set a change in motion, Thunderer. Here, let me put this in terms you will understand: Remember when we would go hawking together as children? You keep the bird hooded, remember? Then when you see a likely catch, you loose it. Once loosed, it does your bidding, whether you are there to wait for it or not. Amora has loosed her bird. That she is confined now, does not stop it flying.”

His brother speaks sense. And is this not the same thing he told Odin, that changes had been put into motion, that did not stop just with the capture of Amora? It recalls long ago days, when he and Loki used to plan for the defense of Asgard together. “What would you have us do, brother?” The words come naturally from his lips, as naturally as they ever did in the past.

“I am not your brother.” Loki's voice is flat. 

The memories of the past fade. Once again, he is in the present, and visiting a brother who has been imprisoned out of dire necessity. “What of Asgard then,” Thor asks. “You would leave it to its fate?”

“And why not? I am not Aesir.”

“Don’t start all that over again!” Every time he talks like this, it hurts. It is like he is denying their past, all the times they used to spend together. And why? Because of a simple accident of birth? Thor feels his voice grow hoarse. “You are my brother. I will never stop calling you that. And we are of like mind, both seeing the problem that is to come. I cannot believe you are not willing to help us fix it.”

“I never said that.” Loki tilts his head a little, giving his brother a strange smile. “Loki is for Loki,” he says. “Who else do I have to be for, with no family and no homeland? I will help, but it has to be to my benefit.”

Thor snorts. “You wish to escape.”

“I wish not to die closed away and alone, if you would call it that,” Loki says. “I will help, – And make no mistake, I can help. Whatever Amora can set in motion, I surely have the power to stop. – but I want my freedom in return. Go, tell the All-Father my offer. See what he says.” A sarcastic laugh. “I'll warrant the old fool doesn't realize there is a problem yet, and being told that Loki the Trickster sees it, is not going to make him more convinced.”

“Do not talk about Father like that,” Thor says, but words are reflex only. Loki is too close to the truth. Thor feels an urgent need to act, and to act quickly, but his father seems only to be ignoring the problem. Would his brother be the one to help though? Dare he trust him to help, after his betrayals of the past?

“Good afternoon then, brother.” He is speaking to Loki's back now, his brother turned resolutely away from him. “I will speak to Father. I will...” – He fumbles for words that fit. – “I will report back when I have a response. Silently, he retreats, for it feels like a retreat. He has lost this encounter, for it feels like a loss, beaten by Loki's sharp tongue. And what has he lost, he wonders, besides a momentary conversation with one quicker-witted than himself?


	7. The Balance Shifts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Pres Ident receives an unexpected visit.

“Come on Bruce, you've got to love New York in the summertime.” Stark's keying modifications (which show up right away in three dimensions on his VR table) with one hand. With the other, he chopsticks up noodles so spicy Banner can smell them across the room. “You know where I got the components for the new solar cell?”

That's his latest hobbyhorse: He's making a solar-powered car. How it's going to run when the sun's not out is the part he hasn't figured out yet.

“I know, I know.” Banner's got to say, the lab is amazing. And Stark's always ready to send out for whatever else he needs for his research. He's been working on a new way to treat drug-resistant infections. It could make some real difference in hospital survival rates. But he keeps thinking about all the people he might really be saving right now. He hears from Juanita back in Houston, that she's been able to get another doctor to visit the clinic three times a month. When he remembers the lines he used to see outside the door every day, his stomach always drops a little. 

“Right next door to the noodle-shop,” he says, “I _know_. – You know the only reason I'm still here is because Dr. Foster is still monitoring those changes in the Earth's resonances.”

“I know you don't love me.” Stark pouts through a mouthful of noodles. “It's a common misunderstanding that just because we're so popular, billionaire playboys don't get lonely. Come on Bruce: Pepper's in California. Rhodey's consulting in Syria. – Thor's still on Asgard, and Steve spends all day every day, working out with those damn punching bags of his. You're like my only friend here.”

Banner just snorts. “Your 'only friend' is going back to Houston if something doesn't happen pretty soon. They can send the SHIELD jet for me if they need me. There's this nurse” –

“A _nurse_?” Stark leers. --

“Get your mind out of the gutter. ...She's doing her best,” he finishes his thought, “but there's only so much she's legally allowed to do. I want to go back.“

“You'll go back,” Stark says. ”Once we finish this ...whatever it is... If anything even happens. You'll go back,” he says, “and in the meantime you'll have this spiffy new treatment you can use on all your patients.”

“Yeah.” Banner looks back into his microscope.

When the phone rings five minutes later, he doesn't look up from what he's doing. It's too much of a wild coincidence that it should be related to what they were talking about, and he's got work that needs doing. It's only when he hears Stark's voice: “Where? There are whats? As in Snow White and the Seven? – Natasha, you're kidding me.” _Then_ , he looks up.

“Seems we've got dwarfs on the White House lawn.”

“Dwarfs.” Banner takes off his glasses and rubs his forehead. “As in little people? As in the First Lady bought some unusually realistic lawn gnomes for that garden of hers and the Secret Service wigged out?”

“Dwarfs as in little short guys with beards,” Stark says. “They want to see the President. – Say they brought gifts for the new Lord of the Nine Realms.”

“Dwarfs. With gifts.” In spite of himself, Banner can't help seeing the funny side of this. 

From the looks of his face, Stark does too. “And Fury needs the Avengers to keep Dopey and Sleepy in line.”

“Or in case Grumpy gets grumpy.” Banner's hands are working independently from his thoughts Automatically, he cleans his work-area and stows his equipment safely away. “Maybe they have swords or something,” he says. “Didn't the dwarfs in _Lord of the Rings_ carry swords?”

\--------------------

As it happens, they are carrying swords. Every one of them has his blade, safely sheathed at his waist and little in proportion with his own height. Some of them carry battle axes as well. They don't look very menacing though. There's just this clump of them, about twenty dwarfs, standing in the middle of the Rose Garden and talking, and sometimes looking dubiously up at the dark-suited Secret Service personnel who are supervising them.

One's separated from the group. He's standing to one side talking with Barton. Snatches of their conversation float by: “More of an elvish weapon really... My brothers and I... Arrows that never miss... Yours explode?” Well, apparently one member of the Avengers feels comfortable with what's going on.

Natasha looks distinctly _un_ comfortable. The dwarfs only come up to her waist. They're on eye-level with her form-fitting catsuit, and from the glances she's getting, it's clear some of them appreciate the view. “One of them pinched me,” she whispers as Banner walks up. “Damn bunch of little midget-perverts!”

“I don't blame him,” Stark says. Then, as her brow darkens right away, “I hope you kicked his ass?” he adds placatingly. 

“Can't.” She glares at the little ambassadors. “They have diplomatic immunity.” 

It's at that point that Fury strides up, narrowly missing an outlying dwarf as he goes past. “Took you long enough to get here.”

“ _What_?” Stark sputters. “My suit... We didn't even wait for the SHIELD jet... ”

“Whatever.” Fury gives him a cool look. “Glad to see you, Doctor,” he says, turning to Banner. “In case you're wondering, it's the Defense Department that wanted you here. You're getting some serious know-how about dealing with E.T.'s.” 

_The Chitauri,_ Banner thinks, _Amora. Now dwarfs?_ “We don't have that much, Director,” 

“Look around you.” Fury's gaze sweeps the suit-clad Congressmen and perfectly-groomed Congresswomen around them. “You've got more than anyone else here. The President is going to meet with these guys.” He gestures at the dwarfs. “Your job is to make sure it goes good.” 

Banner just wishes Thor would arrive. He's the one with the real know-how about things like this. Barring the Asgardian though, the rest of them will have to do their best. He looks to Natasha. “So what do we have to do?”

“What _don't_ we have to do?” She gives an irritated snort. “These guys,” gesturing toward a group of men with make-up boxes, “want to make them up for the news cameras. “Those,” with another gesture, “are the cameramen. They tried to bring their cameras in before, and the one with the long beard panicked. Talk to them,” she says. “One of you do it. I don't want to get manhandled again.” 

Bruce looks at Earth's new visitors. He's not scared to talk to them or anything, but it's weird to think of talking to people who looks that much like extras for _Lord of the Rings_. He looks at Stark, who is obviously feeling the same way.

“I keep wanting to offer them the One Ring,” he says in an undertone.

“Yeah,” Banner says back. “Or ask if they've seen Frodo.”

“Too bad the Captain's not here,” Stark says. “We could push this off on him.”

In the end, it's the dwarfs that solve their problem. The one with the long beard looks up. He sees Stark and Bruce, and immediately walks over to them.

“You! Are you the Pres Ident?”

“What? No, no, not me.” Stark flashes a would-be disarming smile. “I’m a representative of Earth,” he says. “You call it Midgard, don't you?”

The dwarf nods. He looks around. “Your Midgardian Lord has many retainers. And they are very rude. We come in peace, and yet they show their weapons.”

Banner looks around, but he doesn't see any weapons. The Secret Service guys are armed, sure, but their weapons are holstered. How's that different from the dwarfs' own sheathed swords? Fortunately Stark's quicker on the uptake though. “You mean the camera those guys were trying to... Listen,” he says. “That wasn't a weapon. It was... Here, let me show you.” He pulls his Stark-phone out of his pocket. A moment later, he and the dwarf are bending over it, talking intently.

“Your Midgardian smiths put even the sons of Ivaldi to shame,” Banner hears the dwarf say.

And, “that would be me,” Stark says. “I'm the genius responsible for the Stark-phone.” 

The other dwarfs look restive. “Brokk allows himself to be distracted,” a bald one grumbles. “What kind of welcome is this, from the new Lord of the Nine Realms, to send only his lowliest retainers to talk to us?”

“Eitri is right.” Banner hears grumbles from the others. “Where is Pres Ident?”

“It's actually one word,” Banner tells them. ”And it's his title, not his name. You call him 'Mister President'.”

The dwarfs look at each other again. He sees nods, then hears comments: “It is not very majestic. Not like All-Father.”

Eitri looks at him. “Why do you not simply say 'Lord of the Nine Realms'? Is this Mister President ashamed of his new power?”

“Well he didn't actually know...” Banner breaks off. It occurs to him that it probably isn't a good idea to let their new visitors know what a surprise all this is for Earth. He fumbles, searching for a plausible way to finish the sentence, then feels a stab of relief as a squad of Secret Service men approach the dwarfs and he's saved the trouble.

“Mr. Brokk?” The dark-suited agent seems more than a little disoriented, at having to look so far _down_ for his foreign dignitary. “And party?” There is a nodding of heads from the dwarfs. “Come with us, you are getting the seats of honor.”

They've been setting up seating, while he and Stark were talking with the visitors, Banner notices. There's an area cordoned off with enough chairs for the dwarfs, plus one more that's got to be for the President. To the side a little way, is another group of chairs that's got to be for Fury and the Avengers. He can't help but be a little offended that they don't get to sit with the main party. Apparently they're just the hired muscle for this visit.

“Hey, what's with the cheap seats?” Stark echoes his thought. “Don't they know who I am?” Along with the others though, he allows himself to be herded, and sits down. They're still well close enough to see what's happening at any rate, and to hear everything the President and the dwarfs say to each other.”

The cameras are in position and rolling. They're angled to capture the dwarfs' faces, and so close they'll record every change in expression, but after Stark's explanation, that doesn't seem to be a problem any more. The seats are folding chairs, the President's no fancier than anyone else's, only placed a little apart from the others. Banner watches as the Vice President and the Secretary of State come in. His chair jostles a little, as Barton takes the one next to him. He hears the jingle of Natasha's belt, as she sits down two chairs away. Apart from all of them, reporters and congresspeople are still crowding in. Those are the real cheap seats, he thinks. Up where the Avengers are, they're at least getting a little VIP treatment. 

“Bruce!” Barton taps his arm in greeting. He gives a nod of greeting, his face impassive behind dark sunglasses. “What do you think of all this?”

“I think it's crazy as hell.” Leaning across Banner, Stark answers for him. “The whole planet's being turned into Middle Earth. – It's Amora's fault, don't you think?”

“She's the Asgardian you caught in New Mexico, right? The Director said he was going to brief me.” 

“Shhh!” Natasha looks daggers at both of them. She points. “It's the President.” Sure enough, the familiar figure with his well-cut suit and the calm smile that always makes him look two jumps ahead of everybody else, is coming down the middle aisle of the Rose Garden. He calls greetings to a few reporters as he goes by, shakes hands with a couple of congresspeople, but he's not wasting any time getting here. This meeting with the dwarfs is being treated as top priority. 

Wherever Fury is, he's just going to miss seeing this. There's no way he'll disrupt the President's meeting by coming in in the middle of it. It's left to the rest of the Avengers to provide protection. ...If any is needed. The dwarfs haven't shown any signs of violence yet.

“Good afternoon my friends.” Banner watches as the President greets them. “Welcome to Earth.” They seem a little confused as he puts his hand out, offering a handshake. They talk among themselves. Finally as one, they kneel, bowing their heads close to the ground. He sees a chest brought forward and opened. Then there's the glitter of gold. 

“A ship that will carry my entire army if I blow on the sails?” Now it's the President's turn to sound confused. “A fetter that will hold whatever I bind? ...Ragnarok?” A Secret Service person steps forward, whispers something in his ear. The President nods, then recovers his smile. “Your gifts are worthy, my good dwarfs,” he says. “I am honored by them. Come, let us share a drink from this ...Er, from this never-emptying goblet of mead.” – He holds up a gold vessel, glittering with gems. – “Let my kitchen provide food and we will feast.”

The dwarfs are nodding their approval now. Apparently Pres Ident is acting a little more like what they expect from a Lord of the Nine Realms. But behind him, Banner hears murmurs of confusion. “Feast?” “All of us?” “Republicans _and_ Democrats?” “But ...a Supreme Court hearing at one. ...But the Kardashians... Nude photos...”

Meanwhile the President is continuing. “My servants,” he beckons a couple of Secret Service men forward, “will take you to a room where you can freshen up.” He turns to the rest of the audience. “All of you are welcome. Let us celebrate this friendly meeting between one world and another.” 

“Wow,” Stark murmurs low-voiced. “Even unscripted, he sounds just like Thor. The man can really think on his feet.”

Barton snorts. “I didn't vote for him.”

The assembly is breaking up, all of them headed for the feast probably, wherever that's going to be held. Banner watches as dark-suited agents escort the dwarfs into the White House. Then he turns, as he hears Fury's voice behind him. 

“Avengers,” he says. “We need to talk.”

He leads them out a side-exit, to a limo parked at the curb. Inside, Thor's waiting.

“The Sons of Ivaldi are loyal allies of Asgard.” He sounds troubled. “I do not understand why they would be here, and pledging loyalty to your Pres Ident.”

“For the last time, it's _President_.” Stark sounds stressed. The situation is getting to him, to all of them. “It's a _title_.”

“This is definitely related to what happened in New Mexico,” Fury cuts in. “Whatever Amora started, it obviously isn't over yet. I talked to Dr. Foster, she says the readings are still off-the-chart weird, and getting weirder. I'm glad you got here, Thor.” From the sound of his voice, he's only sorry he doesn't have a way of contacting him and shoving him onto the SHIELD jet at a moment's notice when he wants him.

Thor nods. “I stopped only to speak to my family before returning. After what Amora said, I knew we were not finished with this.”

“How is this our job, Fury?”   Stark waves his hand back toward the Rose Garden.  “We’re the Avengers.  Our job is to fight evil.  Those dwarfs didn’t look very evil to me.”

“Yeah, why are there even dwarfs here anyway?” Barton chimes in.  “You said you’d brief me, Director.  Then you just dumped me in here cold. -- And who’s this Amora everyone keeps talking about?”

“Amora is a sorceress from Asgard.”  Thor’s nerves must be frazzled as well.  He sounds patronizing, like he’s  talking to a small child; it’s not his usual friendly, hearty tone at all.  “She worked a spell while she was on Midgard, altering the positions of the Nine Realms.  The dwarfs of Nidavellir are only the first to notice it. Soon, I fear, other realms will act as well.”

“You fear.”  Natasha looks at him. 

Thor shakes his head.  “The dwarfs are not a warlike people.  Their wish is only to be left alone to live as they choose.  Other realms are not so peaceable.  There are the Vanir, who only made alliance with Asgard after many from both our realms had died on the battlefield.”  He frowns.  “There are the Jotun, -- The Frost Giants of Jotunheimr, -- who still refuse peaceable alliance with any of the other realms.”

“Frost Giants sounds like something out of a cartoon.”  Despite the dismissive words, Barton looks a little sick.  “We’re supposed to be scared of somebody that sounds like Santa’s enemy from a Christmas special?”

“I like that.”  Stark snerks a little.  “Rudolph and Frosty save Christmastown from the Frost Giants, tonight at 8:00. -- No but seriously Clint, these guys could give us trouble.  Didn’t Amora say that’s what Loki really is, is a Jotun?”

“So in other words Earth could be invaded by an army of Loki’s,” Natasha says.

Fury nods.  “That’s why I brought you here.”  He fixes them with a stern glare.  “These changes are bad news.  Earth isn’t equipped to run a bunch of realms most people haven’t even heard of.  And as soon as they find out how weak we are, well I don’t think it will be just the Frosty Giants that want to take advantage.  I’m not saying the Earth couldn’t handle itself as the top of the Nine Realms,” he says, predictably, “but we can’t do it at this point, that’s for sure.  We need to get back to the status quo we were at before all this started, at least until we can find out some more about the other realms.”  He looks at Thor.  “How can we do that?”

Thor frowns.  “This is the stuff of sorcery, and I am not a sorcerer.”  He’s silent for a long moment, looking uncomfortable as everyone else watches him. Then, “my brother said he understood what’s happening,” he says.

“No.”  “Uh-uh.”  “Absolutely not.”  Everybody speaks at once.  “You must be crazy, Thor,” Banner hears Barton say and, “How can you even think of it?” asks Natasha.

“Hold up.”  Fury’s voice cuts through everyone else’s.  “Thor never said he was bringing his brother here,” he says.  “He said he had information that can help us.”  He looks at Thor.  “I assume your father will make him give it to us?”

_Make_ him?  Banner thinks about the Loki he remembers seeing on board the heli-carrier:   _Something_ was making him do what he did, his thirst for vengeance maybe, or his own obsessions.  He wonders whether even Odin can make any impression to counter that.

Sure enough, Thor looks dubious.  “No one _makes_ the Aesir do or not do anything,” he says.  “My father will try to persuade Loki to help you.”

“What about your father?”  Banner speaks up.  “What about Amora?”

“Yeah.”  Stark nods.  “If they have the magic for it, couldn’t they help instead?  Why’s it got to be Mr. Psycho-Pants?”

Thor’s look of reproof for his words lasts only a moment.  He sighs.  “I will bring this problem to my father,” he says.  From the look on his face, he is not very hopeful. “What else can I do, my friends?”


	8. The All-Father Sends Help

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Loki cooperates.

Thor's mind is troubled as he returns to Asgard. He is confused by how _fast_ this is all going. True, there are differences in the way time moves in Asgard and in Midgard, but it seems but a moment passed between his last meeting with his father here, and his arrival to discover the Sons of Ivaldi in full negotiation with Midgard's President. How have things changed so rapidly?

More to the point, what can he do about them? His first thought, when Nick Fury spoke of consulting with someone who understood the changes was of course, to remember that Loki had spoken of understanding them. It only took a moment to realize the problem of bringing his brother into this though. Before any of his Midgardian friends spoke a word of objection, he'd already realized they would not welcome Loki's help. His friends still think of Loki as an enemy, and justifiably. – For all he knows, Thor thinks, his brother too, still carries an enmity for the force that defeated him. Would he be willing to help even if asked?

Bruce spoke of Amora, he thinks, and surely the Enchantress must understand these changes, since she is the one who began them. Perhaps he could take her, suitably restrained, and bring her to New Mexico to help return the Realms to proper balance? But she is a tricksy jade, and would likely flee at the first opportunity. Then too, her powers are limited. She is not the spell-caster Loki is. …Or Odin? His father has left Asgard before, Thor knows. Would he be willing to do it again?

The Throne Room is ahead. Seeing him, the guards say no word, but merely open wide the double doors so he may enter. Looking down the carpeted center aisle, Thor sees his father alone. For once, he thinks, he is not interrupting a meeting. But Odin looks troubled. He sits with his chin resting on one hand, a brooding look on his face.

“Son.” He greets him as always, with a warm smile, but he remains seated, motioning Thor to a seat below his. “How did you find things on Midgard?”

“The Sons of Ivaldi were there,” Thor tells the All-Father him. “They brought tribute for Midgard's President.” 

Odin frowns. “They are quick to accept Midgard's new position. And why did none come here first, and ask me about what was happening?” 

“The people of Nidavellir wish only to be left in peace, Father.”

“And this Asgard can no longer provide. I understand.” Odin shakes his head. “I was a miscalculation on my part, Son, to think the mischief Amora started when she was on Midgard would be small in proportion to her powers. In truth, she has begun something mighty, and by now it has progressed far enough that it will take a mighty spell-caster to bring it to a halt.”

“I was hoping that you...” Thor stops, as his father puts up his hand.

“The dwarfs are not the only race that have noticed the change,” Odin says. “Even now, Helbindi musters his forces in Jotunnheimr. Your destruction of the Bifrost is the only thing that has saved us from attack so far. I don't know that we could defend ourselves if such an attack came, Son, not with Asgard's power drained as it is now, but as King it is surely my place to stay in case the attack does come. I will give my people all the protection I can and, if we are defeated, I will die with them.”

Die? Has it really come to this? “Father, no! You are the All-Father, you will prevail.”

“It is your job to make sure that I prevail Son,” Odin says. “You must take Loki with you, back to Midgard.” --

“Father, I cannot,” Thor says. “He is an enemy to them, after his attack on their city Manhattan.”

– “You _must_ ,” Odin says. “The people of Midgard will have to take what assistance we can spare.” He looks at Thor with a dark glare for a moment. “In truth, I should not allow you to leave yourself, Son. You are one of the mightiest warriors Asgard has, and we will sore need you when the Jotun attack. But I trust you to keep your brother under control, and ensure that he uses his powers to reverse this change and bring balance back to the Nine Realms.” 

Thor bows his head. It is a lot his father is putting on him, he's not sure he's up to achieving it. He thinks of his brother's words the last time they met: _Loki is for Loki; I will help only if it is to my benefit._ With no promise of benefit to offer, will he be able to get an agreement out of his brother? What does Odin expect him to do to force agreement out of him if he will not give it voluntarily? “It will be as you wish, Father,” he says though. Odin is his liege-lord. It is his duty to obey, whatever that takes.

\--------------------

It comes as no surprise to Loki when the Thunderer appears at his door again. Truly, he thinks, he should be grateful to his old teacher. Amora's attempt at taking control of Midgard may have failed for her, but it has led, quite inexorably, to this second visit to his own chambers. Asgard needs his help. Naturally they need his help. The realm, which was once so strong, has been weakened. Odin has been weakened. He will ride out as a mere mortal King, if he has to fight Jotunheimr in his present condition. Almost, it makes Loki want to refuse help when asked. How pleasurable it would be to see the once-proud All-Father defeated – Killed! – by creatures of his own kind.

But he will not refuse help when asked. In truth, he cannot. It is because this is his chance, he tells himself. Things in flux can be coaxed to create a situation to his own advantage. He will yet sit on a throne, and may even get to pick and choose which realm he would like to rule, and what their position will be relative to the rest of the Nine Realms. 

“Loki.” Thor does not come beyond the doorway. He stands stiffly, officially, but just as always, his face gives away everything he is thinking.

“You did not come here willingly.” Loki meets the Thunderer, reclining on the bed. Even if he had not been there already, he'd have moved. Their relative positioning gives him an advantage. “Odin sent you.”

“Father has an order he would have me deliver.”

“I am a prisoner here.” Loki spreads his hands. “Am I not already obeying his orders?”

A huge exhalation from Thor. “Please don’t do this. Don’t make it any more difficult than it already is.”

“Difficult? Oh, I'm sorry. Was I being difficult?” His voice as casual as his posture, his eyes careful, studying Thor's smallest reaction. “Odin wants me to fix whatever Amora started on Midgard,” he says. “And, Thunderer, what am I to get in return?”

“Get?” Thor repeats it, swallowing weakly. 

“I made my offer the last time you were here: I will help the Aesir, but I want my freedom in return.” He eyes Thor. This is his moment to get what he wants, isn't it? But no: He watches golden brows knit together, a mouth made for smiling turned down at the corners.

Loki opens his mouth to reject the proposal out of hand. What cares he for the fate of the Aesir? Let them burn. Let the Frost Giants, prevail. But in spite of himself, his gaze is drawn to the window. The sun is shining outside. He thinks about feeling it warm his shoulders again. Leaves rustle, and he imagines the sweet fragrance of a breeze, blowing off distant hills. Just to walk free again, he thinks, if only one more time...

An elaborate sigh. “The All-Father demands a lot of his prisoners.” It is pretense only. He is going to do this. For the mere animal pleasure of it? Loki looks up suddenly, catching his brother's eye. “Tell me pray, what are you to do to me if I refuse?” 

A miserable look fills the Thunderer's face, and he looks away. “I am to compel you by force.”

He knew it! It is a small pleasure, but pleasure still, to make the Thunderer acknowledge this about his father. “Ha! The so-beneficent All-Father,” Loki sneers. “He has not warriors enough, and so he forces his prisoners to fight for him.” 

“This is war.” Thor sounds miserable. He looks at the ground, unable to meet Loki's eyes. “Everyone must do their part.”

“Even those who more rightly would fight on the other side.” Loki keeps his tone bitter. There's more coming, he can sense it. Odin is not done with his demands.

“Father has another order as well.” The words come slow, almost choked out.

Whatever it is, it's bad, and Loki knows it. That Thor knows it too, is very small consolation. He lifts an ironic eyebrow. “And what might that be?”

“You are to be restrained...” 

The manacles. The gag. Loki has to consider. Does he really want to be out of this prison so badly? He thinks of being led outside, forced to wear the cursed things with the entire mortal world watching, of visibly demonstrating his prisoner status. No, a thousand times no. Let them keep him locked up here, it won't be for much longer. The Jotun are going to storm Asgard soon and when they do, who will they find in this prison cell? Who but their own King Laufey's son...

Who but their King Laufey's assassin, only the more traitorous for his close relation to the King? And really, which fate is worse, to be slaughtered out of hand by the Jotun, or to return to Midgard in chains?

“Odin is a fool if he thinks I cannot escape those.” It is pure, empty bluster, but if it shakes the Thunderer's confidence at all, that is enough. “Care to take a wager on how soon I'll be free and controlling your pet mortal realm, Thor?”

“Then you'll do it?”

Is that all the huge oaf heard him say? “I'll do it, and I'll turn it to my advantage,” Loki says.

Thor's face relaxes. “But you'll do it.” A sigh. “Brother, if you knew what this means to me. You'll see,” he says. “We will be a team again before this is done.”

“A team, oh yes.” Loki delivers the response with calculated cruelty. If he is going to suffer, he will not be the only one to do it. “Because every team is made up of one free member and one shackled. Stop lying to yourself, Thunderer.” 

Thor looks away. “Prepare yourself,” is all he says in response. “We leave for Midgard as soon as I have readied your restraints.”


	9. The Avengers and Loki

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Thor removes his brother's gag, and does not regret it.

It pleases Thor that he can bring his brother to a Stark Tower fully repaired after the invasion of the Chitauri. Here is one place where things are still in proper balance: The power of the Tesseract is still Odin's to bring them here. The Tower shines, a welcoming, lighted beacon. 

Loki looks around the place as they materialize. He threw Tony Stark out a window here once, didn't he? Is he thinking about that now? Gagged, he can make no comment of course, and the bitterness that shines in his green eyes has not changed since the gag was put on him. 

“JARVIS!” Tony's security system is personified. The Aesir like to think of Midgardians as backward and inferior, and yet they can create devices like this: The JARVIS machine serves two functions; it is a servant, and it is a formidable guard should the penthouse be in danger as well. 

Thor has never summoned it (him?) on his own before. He is not sure exactly what to expect. Will the machine respond as a servant, or as a protector? “Welcome back, Mr. Odinson.” Thor breathes a small sigh of relief as the voice sounds. “I see you have brought a visitor?”

“Thank you for allowing us to enter, JARVIS,” Thor says. “I brought my brother Loki with me. He has been here before, hasn't he?”

“That is correct. Loki has been here.” The neutral tone of JARVIS' voice, considering how much damage Loki wreaked the last time he was here, surprises Thor. Then he remembers: JARVIS is machine only. It is a little sad, he thinks, that the only person left who can give his brother an unbiased welcome should be a machine. “Welcome back, Mr. ...Ah, how shall I address you?”

“My brother is Loki Odinson.” – Above the gag, Loki's eyes flare, his face contorts. But Thor has no idea what he's trying to say. Perhaps that is just as well, he thinks, considering some of the things his brother has said in the past. – “You may address him as Loki, JARVIS.”

“Thank you, Mr. Odinson. Welcome back, Loki.”

The penthouse is empty and very silent. Normally, Thor hears sounds of the other Avengers' presence even if he cannot see him. Today, there is nothing. “JARVIS, where are the other Avengers?”

“Mr. Stark and the rest of the team are in Washington,” the machine tells him. “Director Fury asked them there to provide advice for an extraterrestrial visit.”

“Extraterrestrial?” It is not a term Thor is used to. Across the room, he hears muffled noises. His brother is trying to comment, but of course the gag blocks it. It is JARVIS that gives the information he wants.

“Visitors from another realm,” JARVIS says. “The Vanir are here to meet with the President.”

The Vanir: Mystical gods from the realm of Vanaheim, their alliance with the Aesir is so long-standing that Thor had almost forgotten they were a separate people. His mother, Frigga, is Vanir. She brought the magic that is taught every Vanir child as a birthright, and she taught it to her husband. It was the basis for the formidable spell-casting abilities Odin now wields. His good friends Frey and Freya are Vanir. – It is said that Heimdall, protector of Asgard, is Vanir as well. – And now they are seeking alliance elsewhere? A stab of fear: Does that mean no Vanir will stand with Odin when the Jotun attack?

“The meeting is being televised.” Lost in his thoughts, Thor is startled when JARVIS speaks again, and he has to think: Televised? It is a moment before he remembers the box-shaped machines that carry information across distances here in Midgard.

“Turn the televisor on please,” he tells the mechanical servant. “My brother and I would watch.”

Tony's televisor is large and flat, set flush with the wall opposite the sofa. The pictures it transmits are vivid ones. In Asgard, such vividness is the product always of magic, held in the hands of a few powerful spell-casters only. Here, it is available for any who own the correct machine. As always, Thor finds himself being pleasantly surprised by the resourcefulness of the Midgardians, who manage so much, with their limited abilities. 

Onscreen, the President stands among the Vanir, looking as if he is among his own kind. He speaks of “this introduction of new culture and challenges into our lives,” and of “the wonderful possibilities to be realized by all, in this collaboration beyond Earth's boundaries.” The Vanir, for their part, make promises of sharing their wisdom with these new leaders of the Nine Realms. – Once, so Odin has told him, the Vanir made those same promises to the Aesir. Thinking of that, Thor can't help feeling a little betrayed. Loki is not the only one, he thinks, who hides duplicity behind a smiling face.

Thinking of Loki, he looks over to where he is standing, still in the same spot by the door. “Come here, brother,” he invites him, patting the cushions of the comfortable sofa where he is already sitting. “There is room and more so, for both of us here.”

The chains make an awful clanking sound, as his brother obeys. He sits, giving Thor a hot, green-eyed stare. The stare is the same look he's worn since they left Asgard, and it has lost whatever power it had over him, but the sight of the gag covering his brother's face below it, still hits him in the pit of his stomach. Is it really necessary that he continue to wear it? The question is there, as fresh as the first time he asked it of himself. But again, images of Loki's invading army, and the destruction it wrought, fill his mind, and he tells himself he has made the right choice. Loki sits. He stares at the screen. What he thinks of the scene being played out on it, Thor does not know. He cannot speak of course, and the expression on his face does not change. 

Thor, watching, worries for Midgard as well as for Asgard. The Vanir allied with the Aesir as equals. They are not equals here. By knowledge and experience, if not by power, they far outweigh the mortals of Midgard. How long, he wonders, before they try to take advantage? And his resolve to end this imbalance quickly, by whatever means necessary, strengthens.

“Please turn the televisor off.” He has seen all he needs to see. Beside him, he hears a snort, followed by a comment mercifully inaudible. Thor feels restless, tense. Moments like these, when all he can do is wait, make him nervous. His place is in the thick of the battle, but there is no battle here. His whole goal in bringing Loki here was to avert battle.

“JARVIS, is there food here?” A moment ago, he would have said hunger was the last thing on his mind, but eating has ever been a way to relieve tension.

“The kitchen has been stocked for your visit,” the automatic voice responds. “Mr. Stark has purchased boxes of every flavor of Pop Tarts.”

Pop Tarts are a Midgardian food, a sort of flat, sweet cake. Thor doesn't know where his friends have gotten the idea that they are a favorite of his, but somehow it seems, every time he visits Midgard, there is someone eager to feed them to him. They are pleasant to eat though, certainly. Thor chooses a box marked S'Mores flavor. He opens the mechanical cold-box the Midgardians call a “refrigerator”, and finds some cans of beer to drink with them. These, he brings back with him to the sofa.

It occurs to Thor that maybe his brother might like to eat as well. If he is on-edge, waiting for his friends to get back, how much more so must Loki be, who is unsure even what their welcome of him will be like. Indeed, he is unsure himself. The last time the Avengers saw Loki, he was an enemy. How are they going to react now, when they are asked to treat him as an ally instead?

“Brother, would you care to eat?” With gentle hands, Thor unfastens the lock on the gag and removes it, setting it on a table to the side.

“I would _care_ to be released.” Loki comes un-gagged spitting like a cornered cat. His eyes flare even darker, his voice is pure, vicious anger. “This is how you treat my offer of help? I withdraw it, Thunderer. You and the All-Father may fight your battles alone.”

“You know I cannot allow that.” Thor keeps his own voice patient. He pulls the little tab on a can of beer and hands it to his brother. “Drink,” he says, “eat.” Tearing open a package of the S'Mores flavored Pop Tarts, he holds one out.

Loki looks at the offered food with pure disdain. “Midgardians eat food like themselves. It is pale and weak. You may play at enjoying this mortal pap if you wish, but I will not.”

Then it will have to be the gag again? Perhaps that is better anyhow. Who knows what Loki may do without it? He sets the food aside and picks up the heavy piece of metal.

A snort from his brother. “Fine, I'll eat.” He grabs the can, snatches the flat Pop Tart from Thor's hands. He bites, he chews, he swallows. “Do mortals really live on such insubstantial fare?”

Thor takes a bite as well. The cake is sweet on his tongue, tasting of chocolate and vanilla, and pure sugar. He eats the first cake quickly, and then opens another package. “Mortals eat many things, brother. Now that you are here in peace, I look forward to showing you some of them.”

Another snort, but Loki continues to eat the Pop Tart. He washes it down with a drink from the can in his hand. “Only _you_ Thor, of all people, would eat a sweet cake with beer.” It’s close enough to their old, brotherly friendliness to lift Thor's spirits.

He laughs, handing Loki another cake. “Well there's Volstagg too. But I suppose he doesn't count, since he'll eat anything.” Thor takes a drink from his own can, the beer tasting of water and prickling on his tongue. His brother makes a comment about _pathetic mortal beverages_ , and how they are but pale shadows of the real food on Asgard, but he chooses to ignore it. He is ignoring Loki's shackles too, after all, and heartbreaking though that may be, it is so out of pure necessity. “Sometime I'll take you to New Mexico,” he says. “They have things called chiles there, that will make the fare at home seem like the shadow for a change.”

Loki swallows the last bite of his Pop Tart, and sets the second one aside. “You will take me soon enough,” he says, “for isn't that where the sacred mountain lies? I will restore balance to the realms, which your puny mortal friends are too weak to do. And then what, Thunderer? Will you return me to Odin's captivity?”

_Do not make me do so,_ Thor wants to say, but what would be the point? He told his brother once that he had to give up his poisonous dreams of power, but only Loki can make himself do it. All of his own great strength, and even the power of Mjolnir, cannot make a change in his brother's mind. 

The two brothers finish their beers in silence. It's time and past, Thor knows, to put the gag back on Loki, but he can't help putting it off. “Remember when you gave me my first hammer,” he wants to say, or “remember when we brought Surtur's sword back from Jotunheimr?” Words crowd his mind, memories from their shared past together, back when there were still no doubts, no shadows between them. He looks at Loki, and Loki looks at him. It's as much as he can do, not to cup his brother's face in his own big hands, to cherish the feel of of his smooth skin, before he's got to hide it under the gag again. How Loki would laugh at him if he did!

“I suppose it's time for the gag.”

Loki's face turns sly, amused. “You could just not,” he says. “What would be the harm?”

“No.” Thor picks it up, amazed again as always, by the sheer weight of the thing. He knows Loki's frail appearance is an illusion, his real body the strong, massive one of a Jotun warrior, but it still makes him uncomfortable to think of weighting him down with the heavy iron gag. “It is time and past...” –

The ting of the elevator that gives entrance to the penthouse, sounds just as JARVIS speaks: “The SHIELD jet has arrived, Mr. Odinson.” A moment later, Clint walks into the room, Natasha following.

“Thor!” Natasha's voice sounds pleased. “We were hoping you'd get back soon.”

“Too bad you didn't get back sooner,” Clint says. “You could have taken my place at that meeting. A lot of politics and crap, no action, nobody who needed defending. And those Vanir, they look just like...” His voice dies, as he comes around the sofa and sees who else is sitting there. “ _You_...” His eyes sweep from Loki to Thor. “What the fuck did you bring him here for?”

He sees the moment when his brother's eyes lock with Clint's. He watches Loki's smile change, then grow, menace and pleasure both there, writ large. “I was looking forward to seeing you again, Mr. Barton. That's why I agreed to come along on this ill-fated enterprise. I wanted another chance to have your ...skills at my disposal.”

“The fuck you say.” Clint takes a step forward, his hands raised. Natasha puts her hand on his arm, and he pauses, but his expression remains ugly. 

Natasha throws a look toward Loki. Then she looks at Thor. “What is he doing here?”

Not just here, but without the gag in place. His pity for his brother has put his friends at risk, Thor realizes suddenly. If Loki should decide to speak an incantation...

It only makes matters worse when the rest of the team enters the room. They come in talking, the same relaxed, friendly banter Thor has come to enjoy sharing with them. Their words fall away soon enough though, as Clint and Natasha's tense postures alert them to the situation. 

“Loki?” Even in such a tense situation, Tony's manner is that of the perfect host, but Thor sees him finger the bracelet he wears, the one that summons his armored suit to him. “Back for that drink I offered, are you?”

“Loki?” Bruce has his glasses off. He polishes them as though the sight of the younger Prince might prove to be just a spot on one of the lenses.

“What's he doing here?” Steve steps in front of him, a soldier, automatically protecting the weakest member of the team.

“My friends,” Thor realizes he's still holding the gag. No point putting it on now, he thinks; the damage is already done. “I apologize for the discomfort and tension our arrival has created. I…”

“Your friends are repetitive Thunderer,” Loki murmurs, “and _so_ defensive! 'Oh no, Loki's here! Let's all run around acting like idiots because that will surely make him leave!' – They should have known the All-Father couldn't be bothered to come sort this mess of theirs himself.”

“Mess?” Tony looks at Thor. “What the hell is he talking about?”

“What, you don't know?” Loki's voice is a coo of pure condescension. “Brain rotted from alcohol abuse, I suppose. Perhaps I don't want that drink you offered after all.”

“It was my understanding that you sent Thor back to Asgard,” he continues. “He said you were frightened by all the attention you'd been getting from the other realms, and you needed someone there _right now_ , to restore balance between the Nine Realms.”

He didn't, Thor thinks, he didn't say any such thing. How his brother can twist words!

“I managed to find time in my busy schedule.” – Of being imprisoned and marking time day after day in pure, miserable boredom. By Odin's beard, his brother is a consummate liar! – “I'm generous like that. Thor will tell you: It's just the kind of person I am.”

Thor can hear Clint mumbling about what “kind of person” Loki is. He sees baffled, angry looks on the faces of all his friends. They are turning, staring at him as if he is to blame for this situation.

Then Bruce speaks. “We need to take action together,” he says, “because this imbalance affects us all. Even you, Loki: Asgard is your home as well as Thor's. Do you really want to see it destroyed by...” – He searches for the name. – “...By Frost Giants?”

“Oho, the beast speaks?” Loki raises his eyebrows. “So this creature is still a part of your ill-fated alliance?”

“ _This creature_ kicked your ever-loving fanny,” Thor hears Steve mutter, but Loki ignores him.

He addresses his remarks to Bruce: “The Frost Giants are my kin,” he says. “Why would I care if they controlled Asgard instead of the All-Father, who is a liar and a cheat? Show some gratitude for my help, mortal, or I will surely return to Asgard and the _comfortable_ rooms Odin provides me there.”

“Enough, brother!” Thor doesn’t bellow, but he's learned from his time on Midgard that even a normal Aesir voice sounds like bellowing to mortal ears.

Loki doesn't even look his way. “The truth is always so hard to take,” he says sweetly.

“Is that the gag you had on him before?” Tony jerks a thumb toward the heavy metal contraption Thor's set down on his coffee table. “Do me a favor and put it on him again. Now. We need a proper conversation here, and we're not going to get it while Reindeer Games here is fucking with everyone's brains.”

“Speaking of brains?” Loki throws him a pleasant look. “I could make yours boil with a single word. ...If you have any left, after all the drinking.”

He doesn't think he'll really do it, that's why he's acting like this, Thor thinks. He thinks brotherly pity will stop him and he can say whatever he wants. He hasn't said any spells yet, which is a good thing, but if he keeps casting dissension among the party, he's going to stop them dead regardless. 

“I don't like to do this,” Thor mumbles. He picks up the gag, the metal heavy in his hands. Loki brings up his hands to stop it being fitted onto his face, but shackled, he can do little. He still doesn't use his magic though, which is a little surprising, because Thor knows he could destroy him, gag and all, with a word. For whatever reasons of his own, he must want this enterprise to succeed as much as the rest of them. “Fools.” The word comes muffled by the still-open gag, and low, as if for Thor's ears alone. “Cowardly, weak mortals. Fine, I will be quiet, as your friends cannot seem to stand the sound of the truth.”

The others look disappointed, as Thor sets the gag to one side on the coffee table again.

“One word out of him.” Clint's got an arrow notched to his bow. “One fucking word.” He smiles a narrow smile. “It would be a pleasure.”

An arrow won't take him down if he does decide to speak, and Thor knows it. Even the Hulk couldn't do it if he once chose to use his magic properly. He's got the good sense not to point this out to his mortal friends however. Enough for them to know that he's behaving himself.

“Okay then, now that that's settled.” Tony heads into the kitchen. “Anyone want something?” He takes out a decanter and a glass. “I'm just going to rot my brain a little more if Reindeer Games is okay with that.” 

“My name is Loki.” His brother's voice is low, barely audible. “ _Not_ Reindeer Games.”

Thor's friends stare. “Yeah, but we're still 'pathetic mortals'?” he hears Clint say.

Natasha, her skill at negotiating coming to the fore, responds first. “You want to be called your real name?” she says. “That's fine. Only Clint's right, you'd better start calling us by ours as well.”

The expression of rage that fills his brother's face at that, makes Thor nervous, but still, he does not respond except to nod. “I will.” 

“I'm Tony.” Tony waves a half-filled glass.

Steve nods from his place at the refrigerator, where he is taking out plastic-wrapped packages of food and piling them on the counter. “Call me Steve. Or Cap...” 

“I know your names.” Loki cuts him off. “Henceforth I shall use them.” _Until I am free of this ridiculous charade,_ his eyes say, and Thor has to force himself to be satisfied with that. Does politeness really come to his brother with such difficulty?

Steve meanwhile, is setting food on the table. The Midgardian habit of wrapping food tight in separate packages is a difficult one to get used to, but Thor thinks he sees meat, cheese, bread, and beer. “Come and get it.” Steve waves them to the table.

“Not you,” Tony says as Loki moves to rise.

“Hold on a sec.” Incredibly, Bruce not only speaks up for Loki, but offers a hand to help him get up off the sofa shackled. “If he's a member of the team, he's a member of the team. He should be part of the discussion.”

“He is not,” Tony sputters.

At the same time, “I am not,” Loki says with a similar sputter. They look at each other in silence for a moment, then Tony laughs.

“Okay right, Bruce, you've got a point. Make yourself comfy, Reindeer ...ah, I mean Loki. You want something to eat? Care for that drink I offered before?”

“I do not.” Loki's face too, looks almost pleasant for a change. He takes a can from the plastic ring that holds them together. “I will content myself with your pathetic mortal ...Er, I will have a beer, thank you very much.”

“I am glad that's settled,” Thor says. The plates Steve has provided them are made of paper, the food is wrapped in thick layers of plastic, and there are red and yellow bottles of flavorings set nearby that he can make neither heads nor tails of, but nonetheless, Thor manages to prepare a thick sandwich for himself. He looks toward Loki. “Would you like me to serve you as well, brother?”

“I am not a child in need of your assistance, Thunderer.” Loki's eyes flick downward, sighting the paper plate in front of him. He speaks a word or two under his breath. Where the plate was, a golden platter of roast meat and fresh, crusty bread now sits; where the can of Midgardian beer once was, there is a goblet brimming with mead. It is a naked display of his power. Although he does not choose to use it against the Avengers, he still wants them to know that it's there.

To his friends' credit, Thor thinks, they are not cowed or distracted by his brother's show of power. Instead, they serve themselves generously, like Aesir warriors after a successful skirmish and, once their hunger is slaked, they settle in to discussing plans. “So next step, we go to New Mexico, right?” Tony gestures with his now-empty glass. “When? Tonight? Helicopter's still on the roof.”

“The helicopter's on its way back to SHIELD, if I know Director Fury,” Steve says. “If we ask for it again, he's going to want to know why, and I don't know about you, but I'd rather explain Loki to him in the morning, when I'm fresh.”

“I'd rather not have to explain him at all.” Clint throws him a look. “Anyway, the jet's better,” he says. “It's faster. Got more room. I wasn't crazy about having you in my lap all the way back here,” he tells Tony.

“Aww, Clint-baby, I'm hurt.” Tony flutters his lashes. “...Okay, right: SHIELD jet in the morning. We make Thor explain about his brother. Once we're down there, how long for Loki to repair things?”

His brother snorts. Thor can see the condescending answer trembling on his lips, but his manners hold firm. “It is not a matter of repair, but of restoration. The Nine Realms are connected, held in balance by magic as old as creation. It is this, I think, that Amora has tampered with.” His temper slips a little, as he finishes. “Really, Stark: I have not been to the sacred mountain yet. How can I tell you what is there, or how long it will take to fix it? Can you repair machines without seeing them?”

His temper evening again, “I will need the shackles removed,” he says.

“No.” “Sorry.” “I don't think that's wise.” All the Avengers speak at once, and Thor has to raise his voice to be heard over them.

“We need my brother for this. Only a sorcerer of his magnitude can undo what Amora has done. And my friends, he needs all his magic to do it.” 

“Thor's already let his brother's magic loose.” Again, it is Bruce who speaks up for Loki. “Didn't the rest of you notice that trick he played with the food? I'm guessing that could have been us he turned into stuff just as easily.”

“A toad, a fly, a little green bug.” Loki's expression is smug.

“Nobody's _making_ him do this,” Bruce continues. “If he's here, it's because he wants to be here.” He looks at Loki. “What's your stake in this?”

Suddenly all the Avengers are looking Loki's way, and Thor sees his brother's smug expression slip. It is not because he has all their combined attention surely? Loki has ever been comfortable in front of an audience. He opens his mouth, then closes it for a moment, as if thinking. “My destiny is entwined with that if the Nine Realms, as is yours, as is my brother's...” He stops dead, looking at a loss for words, for the first time Thor has ever seen.

“In other words, no more Reindeer Games for him to play in.”

The look Loki throws Tony is almost one of gratitude. “It is as Stark says: There will be no more games, for anyone to play in, if this continues.”


	10. Return to New Mexico

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Loki is cooped up in a flying box

Had Loki thought the mountains of Jotunheimr desolate? New Mexico is worse: Mile after mile, mountains alternating with flatland, and the same scrubby, greyish vegetation growing over all. He watches out the window of the SHIELD jet, and he sees the Midgardian landscape change: First, flat green, laid out in squares, then the wilderness. – If “wilderness” is the correct word? It suggests danger, excitement, not this endless, spread-out monotony.

Thor sits beside him. Of all the ridiculous, finicking silliness! That Thor should be here, dwarfed by the stupid little mortal seat, and pretending he needs this stupid little mortal air conveyance, when he could be to his precious New Mexico in half a second with the power of Mjolnir. – That he should be here! Unshackled, he could take all the carping, whinging Avengers straight to New Mexico, or a number of other, more interesting places, in the time it takes a cat to blink. 

But of course he cannot be unshackled. He must not be. He's un-gagged already (thank you Thor, and wouldn't the All-Father be interested to see how _quickly_ you dropped your suspicion of the “war-criminal” Loki), and he will stay so, he thinks, as long as he can avoid drawing attention to it. But the shackles? They will be there until the sacred mountain, probably, until Thor is forced by pure necessity to acknowledge that his scapegrace “brother” cannot do the job he was brought here for with them on.

Admittedly, being cooped up in a cramped flying box with them for hours on end allows him all sorts of interesting new perspective on the Avengers. Time and their battle against the Chitauri have not welded them into a cohesive group of friends, whatever they may think. Instead, they separate into their own tiny little factions. The assassin and the spy sit close, talking together. The two men of science bond over a set of computerized projections, and their own, jargon-laced conversation. The man out of time, dressed for whatever reason, in his tight-fitting, spangly costume (although the power seems to be in the man himself, rather than in his suit), sits apart and reads a newspaper. 

And Thor makes another island sitting apart, all alone, next to Loki. He has nothing to do, reading never having been a high priority for Odin's favorite warrior. There is no shared interest in the highly technical science-conversation of Banner and Stark, nor in the other conversation, equally technical, of Romanov and Barton. Almost one might feel sorry for him. Almost, one might start a conversation out of pure pity. But as sure as he does, Loki knows, that's all it will take for Thor to start in with another lecture about how they're _brothers_ , and how “Father” only has his _best interests at heart_. Best to let him sit there in lumpish, unhappy silence, and continue staring out the window, as the incredibly monotonous flat landscape of Texas grows hillier, and ever-so-slightly less monotonous, as they see, and pass the lights of a Midgardian city, and finally set down on a well-maintained little runway surrounded by razor wire, out in the middle of nowhere.

Gallup New Mexico. It's where the Midgardians had Thor penned up. That was SHIELD, wasn't it? And this, no doubt, is a SHIELD-built runway, dating from their investigation into the mystery of the alien device Mjolnir that fell out of the sky and then disappeared just as mysteriously. Their jerry-built tent city and impromptu excavations at the site where Mjolnir fell have disappeared. What is left is the dusty streets and the tiny, struggling-looking buildings that Loki remembers seeing when he sent the Destroyer to get Thor. He cannot see the appeal. Where would there be any who were the worse off if this entire bleak little outpost were vaporized?

Stark, looking around as they debark, seems to sympathize. “Oh goodie,” he mutters. “Back in Radiator Springs again. Yee-haw.”

The reference makes no sense to Loki. But the 'yee-haw'? That, he can understand entirely!

“Listen, at least we don't have to stay in the RVs right out by Shiprock like last time.” Rogers is, apparently, the optimist of the group. “Fury said he'd put us up in a hotel near the Institute. You and Bruce can commute over and watch the readings with Dr. Foster.”

“And the rest of us will take turns watching Loki.” Trust Barton to remember that bit.

“And Loki will allow you to pretend that your so-terrifying mortal weaponry is what keeps him in line.” He murmurs the comment, throwing a smile Barton's way. “And will refrain from mind-controlling anyone or sending them to alternate dimensions.” A snort from Thor, and he turns his smile toward him. “And he will kindly allow the Thunderer to keep pretending that his mighty strength and his mighty Mjolnir are what made him come to Midgard, when in reality, he offered help of his free will, long before the All-Father in his dotage, had even realized it would be needed.”

The sound of hurried footsteps, and a woman appears. Thor's face, dark after Loki's comments, brightens again. This is Dr. Foster, who coordinates investigation into the shift of balance. As she comes closer, Loki realizes he's seen her before (albeit through the eyes of the Destroyer). So this is the woman Thor was ready to give up Asgard for? How strange, for she seems rather flat and bland. The short one with the glasses at least had some spirit to her.

“Thor!” She has just the one word out, before the Thunderer has her seized in a bone-crushing hug. Then when she is released, her greetings start again right where they left off. “Mr. Stark, Dr. Banner, Captain. – Ah, Mr. Barton and Ms. Romanov, isn't it?” A nod from them, and a greeting. Then Thor's woman looks Loki's way. “And you are?”

“Lady Jane, this is my brother Loki.” Thor makes a sweeping gesture of greeting, that falters only a little bit (congratulations, Thunderer) when he remembers the shackles again. Oh yes, the traditional mortal greeting of shaking hands with the prisoner in handcuffs. 

He gives her the barest smile manners (and the threat of Mjolnir) will allow. “Good afternoon, – Lady Jane? Dr. Foster?” 

“Call me Dr. Foster.” The good doctor's own smile is genuine and untroubled, as if she meets shackled Aesir prisoners every day, and is quite used to it. “And do you want me to call you Loki,” she says, “or do you prefer something else?”

He _prefers_ to be left alone. He was just getting used to the Avengers, and now this redhead shows up to make Thor turn all cowlike and fatuous ...and more fatuous than usual. “You may call me Loki,” he says though, hoping that will be enough to make her go away. 

No such luck. She keeps looking at him with that same bland smile. “You're the one who is going to restore balance on Shiprock?” she says.

“My brother has the ability.” _Again_ Thor speaks for him! By Odin's wounds, why not just leave the damn gag on him, if he is not to be permitted to speak for himself anyhow? “He is an accomplished spell-caster.”

He is the most accomplished spell-caster in Asgard. And since when has the Thunderer ever considered this a good thing? His are mere tricks and deceit, are they not? They are unworthy of a true Aesir warrior? Apparently not when Thor can show them off to impress a woman, however.

“I will use my abilities, and willingly.” Polite-Loki politely allows the Thunderer to brag about him. 

“The chains:” – Credit the woman for at least acknowledging what everyone else strives so to ignore. – “Why are you wearing them?”

“It was my brother who led the Chitauri army,” Thor begins. “Father did not think...”

A raised voice: “I will speak for myself.” Loki raises his hands, the shackles clanking gruesomely. “The Aesir are not so different from you mortals. They too, fear what they cannot control. Odin cannot control me, therefore I go about bound. There should be a gag to complete this so-becoming ensemble, but my kind 'brother' has been good enough to leave it off.” He smiles. “Soon enough I will have to be unbound, as I will need my full powers on the sacred mountain, and at that point you will have to trust my good will to make me act as you wish me to. It would be advisable to remember that as you have dealings with me.”

“A threat?” Oh, she's a smart one, is this Lady Jane!

“A warning only.” Loki keeps his voice mild. “I came here of my own free will, Doctor. The realms will not return to balance of their own. This way lies nothing but entropy and disorder. I am called Lord of Chaos, but even chaos is better when it is controlled.”

There is a mortal vehicle. – A “car”, they call them here. – It takes them to a cluster of low buildings called a “motel”. Lighted silhouettes of cacti and howling canines decorate the exterior signage, prompting more comments about “Radiator Springs” from Stark. – Truly, Loki will have to ask him about these references. Perhaps over a drink or two, before he is loosened up enough to reveal more useful information. 

The sun is setting to the west of them by now. It spreads stripes of red and violet and gold, against the black horizon, and for once, Loki can begin to appreciate what Thor sees in this realm. Midgard is indeed beautiful at this time of night. From a window inside the lobby of the motel, he watches as darkness falls rapidly, and suddenly the only light is coming from buildings illuminated by mortal “electricity”.

“Nothing doing until tomorrow, right?” Stark asks Dr. Foster. He barely waits for her negative response before adding brightly, “Who's up for Mexican?”

A small group forms around him. Names of places, “Mexican” places, presumably, are bandied about.

“Loki?” Thor looks at him, with half his mind quite obviously on his redheaded “Lady Jane.” “Would you care to join us?” But after spending a day and a night cheek-by-jowl with his foes, the idea of going along shackled to a restaurant to eat “Mexican” – Or _A Mexican_? The vernacular is unclear here. – does not appeal. Loki shakes his head and watches almost in relief, as the lobby of the motel empties and he is left in silence.

It comes as a disappointment when he sees that one member of the Avengers has remained. Banner stands alongside him. He too is looking out a window at the rapidly-fading sunset. “Why didn't you go along to the restaurant with the others?” Loki does not bother to make his voice welcoming.

Banner looks at him. “Why didn't you?”

Loki looks at him: The mild, bespectacled man bears no resemblance to his Other Self, who beat him up so thoroughly in Manhattan. “Why do you care? – Why are you still here, Dr. Banner? Are you the member of the team who's tasked with guarding the crazy prisoner? The man who's brain is _a sackful of cats_ , as you phrased it?”

A snort of laughter. It speaks of a bitterness Loki can understand. “I've got my own crazy side, remember?”

“Ah yes, the beast.” What is Banner's goal? Does he seek an intimate conversation: Two losers alone, commiserating in their loneliness? “You're afraid the Hulk might get out.” Loki makes his voice snide, condescending. “Is he prone to do that in restaurants?” 

“He's not _prone_ to do it at all,” Banner says, “but when he does... Well, you saw it.” The words are pure honesty. Did he just ...not notice Loki's nasty tone? Does he not care?

“I _felt_ it.” In spite of himself, Loki returns honesty for honesty. “Your monster hurt worse than Mjolnir.”

Banner laughs again, amused, rather than bitter. “Congratulations: You're the first person who ever compared the Other Guy to a Norse war-hammer.”

“The best Norse war-hammer. All others are mere copies.” There's been a shift in mood between them and somehow Loki, for all his cleverness, cannot see why. It's pleasant though. It will serve to make the evening pass more quickly. He looks at Banner and sees nothing but friendliness on his face. “What do you do for food if you do not go to restaurants?”

“You could conjure us some. – I saw back in Stark Tower: You've still got all your powers, don't you?”

“Not all of them.” By everything he holds dear, _why_ is he sharing this information, and with a mortal at that? Half his power has always been the questions he leaves unanswered, the unspoken threats that his victims overestimate out of pure fear. And yet he holds up his shackles, as nakedly honest with Banner as Banner's been with him. “These work with the gag,” he says. “The one damps the spells I say, the other, the ones I can do without speaking. – They do not make eating easier either.”

“Yeah.” A friendly laugh. “I saw you trying to cut the meat with them on.” – Banner _saw_ him? And why was he watching him so closely? Loki finds that he doesn't care. He can sense no threat in his being watched. – “We've got some foods here on Midgard that you can eat one-handed. You ever had pizza before?”

“Pizza?”

“Best food in the world,” Banner says. “Plus they deliver to hotels. I'll get us one with everything and a two-liter soda. We can watch TV in my room while we eat it.”


	11. A Pleasant Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Loki enjoys pizza and a televisor program with one of the Avengers.

_Pizza_ proves to be a form of circular bread, thin and crusty, and covered with cheese and toppings. Loki takes a bite, then studies the “pizza” dubiously. It is no food for hungry men, but a highly-seasoned facsimile, designed to tempt the jaded. “Do Midgardians never eat anything normal?”

Banner doesn't seem offended. “You think that tastes fake,” he says, “wait 'til you try the Diet Coke.” He hands Loki a glass. The brown liquid in it fizzes, spattering his hand as the tiny bubbles burst, one by one.

Loki studies it without drinking. “This is alcoholic?”

“Alcohol's too real for Diet Coke,” Banner says. “This is all-fake: Fake sugar, fake flavorings... – They'll replace the water with fake water I think, as soon as they have the technology.”

A sip. The “Diet Coke” is not bad, just very, very fake-tasting. “And you drink this why?”

Banner shrugs. “I don't go to restaurants. Try getting anyone to deliver real food to your hotel room.” He pats the bed next to him. “Sit down. I promised you TV.”

Banner's bed is very wide, spacious enough for two men who are not friends, Loki tells himself that they are not friends, to share without inconvenience. He sits. He watches Banner take a small device from the table by his bed and press a button on it. Moving pictures appear on the box on the chest across the room. Ah yes, it is a televisor, like the one in Stark Tower. Loki smiles a little bit. There is a certain pleasure to becoming acquainted with Midgardian culture. It is because all learning is enjoyable, he tells himself.

Banner presses the button again, and the pictures change. “I used to like the news,” he says, “but with us living it 24-7 right now, maybe you'd like something more entertaining.”

“Something more entertaining?” Images flash by. A pink pony talks to a purple pony while a small green-eyed dragon watches. A crudely drawn boy and a yellow dog frolic across a background of rolling hills. A fat little girl in pink dances for her even fatter mother. “These are 'entertaining'?”

The images flash again, then stop. A man in a Midgardian suit emerges from a small blue booth. “Doctor Who.” Banner looks at Loki. “This is.”

He leans back against the headboard of the bed to watch. Loki, beside him, does the same, more with the intent of mirroring his host, than because he has great hopes for the story of this mortal Doctor. A great many references go by very quickly, Daleks, starliners, force-fields, and at first Loki feels quite justified in his skepticism. It is only some while later, when his hand goes to the box for another slice of pizza, then hovers there without moving, as the Doctor crosses the intensive care section, and the Daleks all around him start reactivating, that he realizes he's watching as attentively as Banner. Midgardians may not be able to do anything substantive... He catches himself before finishing the critical thought. Banner and his friends stopped the Chitauri army. He will give them their due respect. Say instead, that whatever their prowess on the battlefield, their true genius seems to be in entertaining the sated, both with their food, and with their “TV programs”.

“That was entertaining.” It's only now that he realizes that he and Banner are sitting side by side on the bed, with only the pizza box between them.

Yeah.” Banner casts a friendly look his way. “Stark got me into watching that,” he says. “I never bothered with cable when I was in my own place.”

“Cable?” Another Midgardian term. Loki wonders if Thor knows it.

“It's a way of getting more TV channels. You either need cable or a satellite dish.”

TV channels? A satellite dish? Confusion wars with curiosity.

“Never mind,” Banner says. “Stark and I will explain later, when we're back in Manhattan.” He grabs the Diet Coke bottle off the floor, dividing the last bit into his and Loki's cups. “What do you do for entertainment on Asgard?”

“We fight.” It is out of Loki’s mouth before he realizes it, and it is not until he says it that he realizes how ridiculous it sounds. The Aesir _fight_ for _fun_. And he wanted to patronize the Midgardians for watching the Honey Boo Boo Child, and the pink pony with the purple dinosaur? “We drink,” he adds lamely, “and we feast.”

“I see.” Banner’s voice is amused, but not in a mocking way. Where did he learn it, Loki finds himself wondering? How is it that he is so easygoing, he, who has a giant monster inside him, that is the only being that has ever been able to best Loki in battle? 

“I was never very good at battle.” Again, the words come out before Loki realizes he was going to say them.

Banner laughs. “Tell that to Manhattan.”

“No really,” Loki says. “I was ever the scholar instead of the warrior, and more at home with my books.”

“Yeah, I wanted to be a scientist.” Behind his glasses, Banner's eyes are dark brown and sincere. “I was one too, and a good one. Then the Other Guy got in the way.”

“Thor got in my way,” Loki says. “He was never content but that I was at his side, and battling whatever foe got in his way too.”

“Life does that. You can't control what happens to you,” Banner says. “You can only control what you do about it.”

What you do about it... There is no judgment meant, Loki is sure there is no judgment meant at all, and yet he feels one. Maybe it is coming from inside himself. He looks away, suddenly very busy with the pizza box. There is no pizza left inside, but there is a single desiccated olive. Loki picks it up, pretending to himself that he might want to eat it.


	12. Restoring Balance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Loki is released from his bonds, and _does things_ on the mountain.

“Can he do it with the handcuffs on?” Loki's sitting right in front of them, in the limo that's their improbable ride out to Shiprock. He can obviously hear whatever they say, but that's not stopping anyone from saying it. Clint throws him a distrustful look (which Loki can obviously _see_ as well). “As soon as those things come off, he's going to try something, I know it.”

“My friend, what would he try?” Thor, the reasonable big brother: It's hard being reasonable, when your friends and your brother are enemies, but maybe it's good practice for being King of Asgard.

“He could throw somebody off something.” Unthinking, Stark's hand goes to the case with the suit in it, which rests on the seat next to him as though he might have to fight Loki before they even get to Shiprock. “He's good at that.”

“You already took the gag off,” Natasha says. “Was that a good idea, Thor?”

“My brother has done nothing.” 

They're outside of Gallup now, passing fenced-in neighborhoods, each one a little scruffier than the last. Ahead of them, the desert is as empty and desolate as ever, only colder than when they visited in the summer. Periodically, a rocky mountain will rear straight up out of the flatlands, but so far, not the one they want.

“ _This_ time he's done nothing,” Barton says. “But Thor, how much of that is because of the handcuffs? I still say: Can he do the magic with them on?”

“My friend Clint, we'll be right there. All of us...”

“And the only one of us he's scared of...” Barton looks meaningly at Banner.

He means the Other Guy. Bruce Banner's fine and all that, but the only reason he's got a place on this team is because he can unleash a huge, destructive monster. – Or the monster can unleash himself ...sometimes. For his own reasons. It's not like Stark, who only has to push a button on his damn briefcase.

“Loki cannot do it with the handcuffs on.” A voice comes from the seat in front of them. “Or he will not. It amounts to the same thing.” He closes his eyes for a moment, and when he speaks, his voice is softer. “Your sacred mountain is close, I can feel it. Amora did not just shift balance between the realms, but between Chaos and Order themselves. First it is Midgard that ascends, then another realm will follow, and then that too will shift.”

“But you can stop it, right Brother?”

“I hope there is still time.” Loki opens his eyes. He looks down at the clanking metal encircling his wrists. “I can do nothing with these on. Your friend the archer is going to have to trust me. Come.” He throws a sly, green-eyed glance Barton's way. “Was it so bad when we worked together before? Did I not give you everything you wanted?”

Before the conversation can go further, their limo pulls off onto the shoulder and stops. “We're here, Mr. Stark.”

Looking out the window, Banner can see they're still a good walk away from the mountain. That's the disadvantage to riding in a limo: No four-wheel-drive. Where Dr. Foster could take them right up to Shiprock, apparently the Gallup Chauffeur Service isn't willing to risk it. Oh well, he used to walk further just to get to his clinic in the mornings, when he was in Calcutta.

A cold wind blows across the desert, chilly, after the warmth of the limo, and Banner zips his jacket as he gets out of the car. From inside, he hears Stark saying something about renting a golf cart too next time.

“Lazy.” Natasha's response. “It's just a little healthy exercise.”

“I have tech so I won't have to do healthy exercise.” Stepping out of the car, Stark pushes a button on his briefcase and suits up.

“And the rest of us?” Barton, apparently, is not a fitness-nut either.

“Don't be a baby,” Rogers says. “It's just a little walk...” 

“I will take you, friend Clint,” Thor interrupts. “I can return for you, My Lady Natasha, and for the rest of you.”

“Don’t encourage him.” Natasha tosses her head. “And I certainly don't need to be carried. You think I can't walk that little bit?”

“We could be there right now,” Loki says, “if someone” – He looks at Thor. – “will undo these.” He holds up his handcuffed wrists.

Banner sees the pained look Thor casts at his brother. He also sees the filthy looks all the Avengers are throwing at him not to do it. There's not much else the poor guy can do, except bring out Mjolnir and fly off with his brother to Shiprock. Loki's comments as they go float back: “You are captive to your friends' paranoia. They will have to get used to me or else...” Whatever he's saying vanishes into the distance, and there's just the tiny dot of them, as they shoot straight up the side of the mountain.

“Well Bruce?” Stark's by his side, with his thrusters already on, so he hovers just an inch or two above the desert sand. “You up for another ride?”

“No.” Remembering the nausea-inducing feel of the last one. “Not until I absolutely have to,” he says, “and then, I think I'd rather if Thor lets Loki do it.”

Barton's eager to go with him. No surprises there. Banner walks the rest of the way to Shiprock with Natasha and the Captain. The wind is at their backs. Cold though it is, it just feels refreshing, and there's a fresh, herb-y smell that seems to cover the whole desert. Whatever's coming when they get to the mountain, the walk at least, is pleasant. One thing about living with the Other Guy, is it teaches you to find your pleasure in the moment.

\--------------------

As it turns out, he's the last one to get to the top of the mountain (and Mjolnir is, at least, a less unpleasant way of getting there than Stark's thrusters), and when arrives, Loki already has the cuffs off. Loki looks a little green. His eyes are darting around nervously, not like he's watching out for the Avengers, but like he doesn't know what to watch out for. “There is a lot going on here.” His voice is low, as if he's speaking to himself. “I ...Where to start?”

“Brother, are you all right?” 

Loki turns an angry look at his brother. “You brought me here. At least give me space to work.”

He raises his hands, stretching his now-freed fingers. Banner hears nervous hisses coming, and not just from Barton. Thor looks a little worried. – Hell, even he's worried. He'd swear Loki's sincere about wanting to fix this problem, but there's just something about seeing him totally unbound, and remembering some of the things they all saw him do before... What's going to come next? Some kind of attack? Will he start by changing into the battle armor he wore in Stuttgart? But instead, Loki walks a little one way. He walks back the other way. Then he raises his head. – It looks like he's sniffing the air, like a dog finding his master's steak. – Finally he sits down on one spot of ground, that looks just like all the other spots of ground. He crosses his legs.

He's sitting in the lotus position, Banner notices. He's done enough meditation himself, to be familiar with it. Loki says something. -- None of them are close enough to hear what he's saying. He won't let them be. – Green light starts glowing, and forms a circle around him. That's the most dramatic thing that happens. After that, Loki just sits there with his hands in his lap. Sometimes he talks, sometimes he's silent. Sometimes his eyes open for a minute, but that's it.

Everyone watches for the first couple of minutes. Then they start to filter away. Natasha and the Captain get to talking. Stark's got his phone out and he's doing something. – Checking his email, maybe. Thor walks around and around the plateau, like he needs an outlet for his tension. Even Barton turns away finally, when whatever Loki's doing goes past half an hour.

Eventually, Banner stops watching too. Stark comes over and thrusts his phone in his face. He's been working on low-cost water purification systems, after hearing Banner talk about how the single biggest risk to public health in developing nations, is the lack of clean water. He's got the plans on the phone. – You wouldn't think a person could get distracted with a super-villain free, and doing mysterious rituals right in front of him, but apparently you'd be wrong. Magic, it turns out, is not as interesting as floor plans and generator-diagrams. Banner takes a look, then he grabs the phone. Then he doesn't know how much time goes by after that. 

“It is finished.” Everyone starts and turns around, at the sound of Loki's voice. If he looked bad before, Loki looks really bad now. His face is colorless, except for dark hollows under his eyes, and sweat-drops stand out on his forehead.

“Brother, are you all right?” Thor goes to him.

“No.” It comes hard for him to admit it, Banner thinks. “Do you think I'm all right?” he snaps. “Would you be all right? – You do realize I've done something more difficult than all the war-mongering you'll do in your entire pointless life?”

“What _has_ he done?” Natasha says it, as though thinking aloud. “I didn't see anything...”

“Blind, ignorant jade!” Despite his protestations, Loki lets his brother help him to his feet. “You think you would _see_ the balance of the Nine Realms changing? It is well beyond your limited understanding. Even the Aesir are incapable, too stupid in their mundane understanding of the Universe.”

“I’m sure you worked hard.” Stark is trying to sound helpful.

“Do not patronize me, Stark.” Loki throws him a furious look. “You think your _technology_ has opened the secrets of the Universe to you, but you are a mere babe, and as blind as the rest of them.” He looks at Thor. “I would rest. Return me to the motel, now.”

“Brother, of course.” Thor looks toward the rest of them. “I will take Loki to his room. Do you need me to return afterward?”

A shake of his head from Stark. “I can get everyone down all right. And the limo will take us back to Gallup. You go tuck Baby Brother in his widdie-biddie bed.”

Loki's angry snort is predictable. Before he can say anything though, “you're _sure_ he did what he came here for?” says Natasha. 

And, from Barton, “you do realize you haven't put the cuffs back on him yet?”

The cuffs are sitting on the ground near where Loki did ...whatever it was he did, actually. Banner picks them up. They can't stay off Loki forever, surely. He may have worked on the side of good in this one case, but he's got his own plans, you only have to watch him to see that. Better, and safer, for everyone, if his magic gets damped back down again once he's back at the motel.


	13. Loki's Deception

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the morning brings an unwelcome surprise.

He's asleep when the Avengers get back to the motel, though, and Thor practically explodes at the very idea of waking him up just to put the cuffs back on. “Have a care, Bruce,” he says. “My brother helped your realm. He did Deep Magic, and he is justly tired. I will not let him be bothered before morning.” 

But then Banner sleeps late the next morning. He only barely makes it out to the lobby before the continental breakfast stops serving, and when he does go, he forgets to take the handcuffs. Thor greets him from a table near the fireplace. 

“Friend Bruce! At least you're up. The innkeeper tells me they will stop serving breakfast in ten minutes. I fear my other friends will go hungry.”

They won't of course. For one thing, there's a Denny's just across the street. Banner imagines introducing Thor to the wonders of the Grand Slam. Only from the generously piled plate in front of him, not to mention the stack of other, emptied plates to the side, he doubts even the Asgardian could manage another whole breakfast.

“Where's Loki?” He asks it, but most of his mind's on coffee; he's not really attending to the answer.

“My brother took his breakfast back to his room,” he thinks he hears Thor say. Or maybe it's that Loki ate and then went back to his room. At any rate, he's not in the lobby and, still half asleep, Banner doesn't question further. He pours his coffee, then adds a splash of milk from the pitcher next to the cold cereal. He drinks the first cup still standing next to the coffee urns, – Hotel coffee is always so weak he needs at least two cups to get going in the morning. – then pours some more and wanders over to sit with Thor.

“Don't you want to get some food?” Thor gives him a worried look. “The innkeeper said he would stop serving breakfast...”

“Never mind, really. It's not a problem.” A Grand Slam, Banner's thinking, or an Egg McMuffin maybe. There's bound to be a McDonalds around here. – Or a breakfast burrito... What do New Mexicans put their so-famous chiles on top of in the morning? It doesn't occur to him that he's completely stopped thinking about Loki, not to mention the handcuffs. 

Then Stark comes in, holding up a USA Today. “Vanaheim's giving the President a pair of bilgesnipes, I see,” he says. “Typical. Like that's a bigger story than an extraterrestrial super-villain helping Earth's mightiest heroes by using his magic for good instead of evil for once.”

Natasha snorts. “Yeah, and if they had gone with that one, you'd be complaining that they got your bad side in the picture.”

“You kidding? They wouldn't even have a picture of me. It would be all Loki-Loki-Loki.”

Everyone's in the lobby now, and they all move toward Thor's table. Banner hears the Captain say something about why's Stark even reading a real newspaper, don't they have news on computers? And Stark responds with grumbles about _stupid half-assed networks that fucking don't recognize the same password he used last night_.

“So I guess we missed breakfast?” Barton looks over to where the buffet used to be, where uniformed workers are now dismantling things and taking them to the kitchen.

“There is still coffee.” Thor points. “I am sorry my friends,” he says, “I should have waked you early enough to eat with me.”

“No never mind, seriously.” Stark heads over to the urns and the stack of cups and pours coffee for himself. “Given the choice between getting up early, and missing breakfast: Well lets face it, it's a no-brainer.”

“Besides, there's a Denny's across the street.” Banner gestures out the window.

Barton grins. “All-day breakfast, baby!” He rubs his hands. “Let's go.”

“Yeah yeah, just a minute.” Stark holds up his mug, still half-filled with coffee. “I'm surprised you don't want some too Clint. You drank as many margaritas as me.”

“Yeah, but I didn't have two B-52 Coffees afterward.”

Stark takes another gulp. “Say, where's your brother?” He looks around. “Don't tell me he's still recovering or whatever?”

“We're not taking him with us, are we?” Natasha says. She shudders. “I hate that nasty look he's always giving us, like he's going to incinerate us right after his food's gone.”

“My brother needs nourishment too!”

“But not with us.”

“He's eaten already anyway.” Banner interrupts their argument before it can get started. “Thor said he came down and got his breakfast earlier.”

“Good, no Reindeer Games!” Stark shoos a kitchen worker away from the coffee urn and pours himself another cup. “I can eat my Moons Over My Hammy in peace.”

“Your _moons_? What sort of food...”

“You put the cuffs back on him when he came down, right?” -- Thor and Barton both speak at the same time.

“I did not.” Thor looks uncomfortable. He's being pulled two ways again. “I felt he should at least eat in peace.”

“And he ate and then you put them on?”

A shake of Thor's blond head.

“Well we're putting them on now,” Barton says. “Come on. I'll go up with you. – No, Bruce can go up. Hulk's the one he's scared of.”

He's not, Banner thinks. He's just ...out-sized for a change. Then after that, _oh great, once again I'm only being invited along for my gigantic monster skills._ He stands though. This is going to have to be done sooner or later.

Barton leads the way out of the lobby. “What room's Loki in?” 

“201.” Thor looks at Barton. “I know you have every reason to bear my brother enmity, friend Clint.”

Up the big ornamental stairs they go. “And you don't?” Barton says. “Didn't he try to kill you?”

Onto the second floor, down the hall. For some reason the motel's put Room 201 down at the end of the hall near the fire exit. “It's complicated.” Thor's explanations don't sound like they make a whole lot of sense, even to him. “The knife wound was a mere scratch. – The Aesir are immortal.”

Reaching Loki's door first, Barton knocks without waiting for the others to catch up. “Loki,” he calls. “Hey, Loki! Your brother's here.”

There's no answer.

“He'd better be in there.” Barton knocks again. “If he escaped... – Thor, do you have a key?”

Thor brings out a key-card. “I am sure my brother is fine. That he does not shout down the hallway and disturb the other guests,” – He throws Barton a dirty look. – “proves nothing.” He fumbles with the card, sliding it a couple of times without getting a good reading.

“Give me that.” Barton grabs it. “Where are the cuffs, Thor?”

“They are in Bruce's room. If you'd managed to be patient...”

“We'll take Loki there. – _If_ he's still here to be taken.” The card engages, and Barton shoves the door open.

Banner's not sure what the others are expecting, but he's halfway surprised when he enters the room and sees Loki just sitting on his bed quietly. He looks up, – Same snotty look in his green eyes as always. – but does not bother to stand.

Barton steps forward. “Loki, you're coming with us. “You've been without those handcuffs of yours for too long.” He puts out his hand, ready to grab his shoulder.

“Show some respect.” Thor grabs Barton's shoulder, stopping him. “My brother is a Prince of Asgard.”

“He was a Prince.” Barton shakes Thor's hand away. “Now he's a prisoner, you said so. Come on, Loki.” He reaches out, puts a hand on Loki's wrist, then lets out an involuntary cry, as it goes right through it.

“It's a hologram.” Bruce Banner, stating the obvious.

“It's an illusion,” Thor says. “It's one of my brother's best spells.”

“You let him get away.” Barton turns on him. “You had the cuffs, you had all those chances, and you fucking let him get away.”

Thor just stares while the hologram fades in front of him. “Loki...” His mouth barely shapes the word.

“Your brother's gone.” Barton sounds infuriated. “Have you got any idea what kinds of things he might be planning? Because I do. I worked with him, remember?”

Thor, still standing there. “But why?” He still sounds totally uncomprehending.

“He's been looking for a way to escape ever since he got here,” Barton says. But is that really true, Banner wonders. He was perfectly willing to go to Shiprock, that's for sure, and he stayed and did ...whatever it was that he did there, even without the handcuffs on.

“He didn't want to go back to Asgard.” The words pop out , as if involuntary.

“Well he will go back.” Thor's found his mind again. There's an angry look of resolution on his face. “He must. It is the All-Father's order.”

“And we all know how seriously he takes your father. – Look, we're wasting time here.” Barton turns toward the door. “I'm going downstairs and call SHIELD. They can get their surveillance equipment to work looking for him. And Tony can mobilize his Stark-phones, or whatever he did last time.”

Down they go again, but in a much more serious mood than when they came up. Barton's already given word to the others, by the time Banner and Thor get to the lobby. He and Stark are talking earnestly into their cell phones, while Rogers paces, alternately looking out the window like he expects to see Loki out there, hiding in the bushes. Natasha's gotten a cup of coffee from somewhere. She cups it in her hands and stares into the steam, her eyes brooding.

“I will find my brother.” Thor's voice breaks the silence. “I will return to Asgard. Father's magic will show me where he is.”

“The question is, what's he going to do before you get back?” Barton looks up from his phone call just to comment. “If I remember, he'd already killed some people by the time you showed up last time. – Yes, Director Fury. That's right, Thor. – Are the cameras going yet? Because we both know how fast Loki can move.”

“We found him last time because he wanted to be found.” Natasha is practical as ever. “That was his plan, remember? The question is, what's his plan this time?”

“Has he got a plan?” Rogers stops pacing and comes over to them. “Did he have any way of knowing he'd get the chance to escape?”

“Well it was a safe assumption.” Barton, putting his two cents in again. “Because Thor always gives his baby brother everything he wants. – Sorry, Director Fury,” back into the phone.

“I think he's going to hide out for a while.” Everyone looks at Banner with surprised expressions, like they'd have expected a lamp to talk sooner. But it makes sense, doesn't it? He's just the first one to notice. “Thor said whatever it was he did on Shiprock yesterday tired him out. I don't think that was all faked, he looked almost sick after he finished. And then he had to use more magic to escape. I think whatever he does, he's going to go someplace and rest first.”

“And then what?” From the silent piece of furniture, apparently Banner's turned into an oracle now.

“And then I don't know.” He shrugs. “And then I guess it depends whether he's changed his mind about ruling Earth or not. – He doesn't have an army this time, you know.”

“ _Yet_.” Barton's off the phone now. “He doesn't have an army yet,” he says. “But he can still mind-control all the people he wants, and make one.”

“Right. Which would take time,” Natasha says. “Which brings us back to what Bruce says: He's going to need time to rest too, before he does anything. So I guess the question is, where do you hole up to rest when you're a supervillain, and everybody in the world is looking for you?”

“You're assuming we'll find him before he's done 'holing up'.” Barton turns on her. ”How does that make any sense? Have you seen how fast Loki can recover from things? Because I have. I figure we have maximum, one day...”

“And you're assuming he's got a plan.” Natasha, right back at him. “He was in control, last time. This time was all about luck. He had a chance and he took it. Now he's got to figure out what to do next.”

“While we're sitting ducks.”

“While we're _sitting_ ,” Stark's interruption is a relief to everyone, “in Stark Tower. We've got every camera in the world looking for Loki right now. And your brother's not a shy guy, Thor. He likes the spotlight. Remember last time? So let's go back to the Tower where we can be comfortable, – Where I can finally have my breakfast that I've only been waiting for, for about a year now. -- and we'll wait for the computer to find him.”


	14. A New Citizen for Manhattan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a pretty, green-eyed girl apparently comes out of nowhere, and takes up residence in the City That Never Sleeps.

At first, just being free of the restraints is enough. Those cursed pieces of metal, that drain his power, that do not erase his knowledge of magic, but make him unable to use it, are gone. He is himself again. Of course directly after that, he is expected to use all his pent-up power to fix the damage Amora has done. Up they go to the top of the mountain. – Thor's friends are fearful; there is no way they will let him have his freedom until the very moment when they use him. Poor fools. As soon as the gag was removed, he had all he needed to destroy them. Did they not realize it? Did they not wonder in the least, why he held back? 

He held back, because the damage needed to be repaired. Amora's plan, if such it can be called, was a foolish one: First, throw the balance off between the realms. Then, hopefully, take control of the realm that ends up on top. Did she not stop to think even once, that balance, once shifted, may never be restored? Did she not realize that once begun, the falling would not end until all Nine Realms were toppled? Loki reaches Shiprock only just in time to halt the worst of the damage. He feels inside the sacred mountain and touches the core of Midgard's essence there. Faint stirrings tell him of its connection with other realms, and as best he can, he heals those. Time only will tell the extent that the balance can repair itself.

And when he stands after finishing his work, he sees the Avengers, all agog to have him restrained once more. Shackles and gag, if you please. The whole package. They will not be responsible for unleashing the Threat of Manhattan yet again.

Fortunately, Thor is more gullible. A moment of weakness, half-feigned, a stumble, and a pathetic look toward “big brother”: At once, a big arm goes around him, he is being supported, half-carried almost. Then up goes Mjolnir, and in a crackle of lightning, they are returning to his room at the motel.

And what of Loki's restraints? Oh please, do you not know the Thunderer well enough to realize that that will not be a problem? Loki angry, he knows how to handle, but Loki weak? Loki still half-sick, after that _huge_ , _exhausting_ effort he made on the mountaintop? A thousand treats given to him when Thor would have kept them himself, – A thousand times when the best toy, the best piece of pastry, the best spot in Frigga's lap went to him during story time, have trained him well, and he knows the role of a “caring” big brother. It is an undignified way of getting what he wants surely, but needs must when the situation demands it. Loki is free now at any rate, as free as a silver fish dancing in the water.

The next day is his to do what he wants with. – The next _day_? Say rather the rest of history. – Say the entire world: Loki is free. His power is whole, and complete, and intact. He can go where he wants, and do what he wants, and who is to stop him? The Avengers? They triumphed before only because his plan was a poor one. He led an untested army, relied on a weapon he'd had no chance to master, and he was defeated by a force he'd never seen in battle. That was not a defeat, it was a learning experience. This time will be different.

The world lies before him: A treasure house ready to be ransacked. – An orchard, the fruit ripe and ready to fall into his hands. Where to go first? What to do? He cannot stay here, that is for certain. In this sparsely populated desert of New Mexico, he will be discovered as soon as he steps outside. The Midgardians have machines ( _tech_ , in Stark's words) that can recognize a man from his bone structure, yet even a disguise will not do. With so few people to look at here, every stranger will be commented upon.

What he needs is a city, a _large_ city, where one more stranger among the multitudes will make no more impression than one more raindrop during a summer storm. For once, he would be _in_ conspicuous. Loki God of Chaos would be unseen. He pictures such a place. – It is one where he's been before, so transportation there is easy. For his brother's amusement, he leaves a double of himself, a little not-Loki who can carry out the mundane tasks of getting up and getting breakfast, and keeping the Avengers distracted.

Loki Liesmith is gone. He is not merely gone from this place, but he is _gone_ , end stop. In his place, the clone, and in another place, in a city where the Midgardian noises do not stop whatever the hour, and the mortals crowd together as tight as netted fish, there walks a girl. A ponytail holds her dark hair back, a bulky coat with the collar turned up protects her from the chill wind of approaching winter. A green silk blouse, and a leathern bag of green, large enough to... – Well, large enough to hide _Volstagg_ inside, do not make her stand out as she would have feared. Such fripperies are standard in this city, and, with them, she looks but one mortal among many.

At first, her freedom is all she needs. The autumn breeze is crisp, but the sun is warm against her dark hair. The mortals on every side of her give off a palpable energy. A snatched laugh, a flash of smile, a scrap of conversation: On every side, there is life, and after a sterile prison cell that is enough. After a time, she is hungry. There is a street cafe close by, offering something called shawarma. It is better than anything Loki has eaten since coming to Midgard, because it is eaten in freedom. Outside again, she finds a park. The afternoon goes by, and evening finds her still there, sitting under a tree and watching as the sun sets and the blue sky darkens.

Loki's plans can wait. – In truth, they will have to wait. Just this small change of identity has sorely taxed her magic, already drained after the work on Shiprock. She needs a place where she can stay and rest. ...She needs a place where she can formulate her plans, and decide what she will do next. The variables have changed since the last time she was on Midgard. Before, Loki had an army, but he also had a so-called “ally” dictating the terms under which he would use it. Now she has all her magic. She has the world, all unknowing that she even exists in this form. And there are other assets as well. There are the Avengers. An all-out assault against them will fail, she knows now, but who knows what might not be gotten by persuasion? If she can but find their weak link...

_So_ many choices! But in the meantime, the sky darkens. The evening air grows chill, and her short coat, so cozy but a few hours ago in the afternoon sunshine, now fails to keep her warm. Loki needs a place where she can rest and finish her planning. And she thinks she knows of just such a place. She lets it form in her mind, and then she goes there. And the shadows are deep enough by then, that no one notices when there is nothing, where a girl once sat.

No one notices when she arrives, either, but then she does not go back to the penthouse that she (he!) left so recently. It is a huge building, most of it still untenanted, after the attack the year before. Once it housed office workers, she thinks. Desks like boxes, inside of flimsy, temporary-feeling rooms that are also like boxes. And had she become ruler here, the mortals had at least been treated better than this! Those that pleased her, at any rate. No matter though, for she will not be living with this furniture. A thought, no more, and Loki has conjured what she wants: A bathroom, with brilliant, Midgardian lighting, and a huge, Midgardian-style tub; a bed, soft, and piled high with bearskins; a bookshelf... Here, she is foiled. She can create the _books_ , but not the words inside that give soul to them. She will have to get her entertainment elsewhere, while she stays here. ...A _televisor_ , then. She makes it large, flat-screened, like the one in Stark's penthouse. And she adds a telephone – No a _Stark-phone_! – so she can call out for food, as Banner taught her to do. 

This will do, she thinks. It will be quite comfortable. And how amusing, to think of all the Avengers scurrying around like ants and looking for her, right above her head. Will they figure out the mystery? But the answer, she is sure, is no. Thor is undoubtedly still searching in New Mexico, picking up each grain of sand perhaps, and checking to see if Loki is underneath. Stark? Oh, Stark is wedded to his “tech” to be sure. He will wait until the “facial recognition software” finds Loki, and that will never happen. And Natasha will wait with him. She is Fury's girl and, like him, she is wedded to machines as well. The others are negligible. They will go where they are taken, Barton bringing his arrows, the Captain his shield, and Banner, the beast he carries around inside him. None of them will look here at any rate, for that makes no sense. Villains do not normally hide among file cabinets and packing cases. And before they have time to realize that their other efforts are fruitless, she will be gone from here, her new grand plan in full effect. ...Whatever it turns out to be. For now though, Loki orders a pizza (the three she tried conjuring were _not successful_ ). Dr. Who is on the televisor (powered so kindly, by Mr. Stark). After that, she thinks, a bubble bath would be pleasant.


	15. Girl-Loki's Admirer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tony Stark finds a _creative_ way of dealing with stress, while he waits for Loki to be found.

“I know it's hard to wait, but the machines are taking care of things.” Stark, with a bottle in one hand ( _again_ ), and a glass in the other. “We just have to wait for them to find a match. Best advice I can think of, is we stay here and get quietly plastered. – Or we could go out and get loudly plastered. I know some girls who dig superheroes.”

“Your reasoning would work well, Friend Tony,” – Thor's putting the stuff away pretty well himself too. There's four, maybe five empty beer cans on the table next to him, and he's already halfway through another one. But on him it doesn't show at all. – “if it weren't for Loki's magic. My brother can change his shape,” he says. “He can change his voice. Your machines search for Loki as they have seen him before, but we know not what form he is in now.”

“Would he do that?” Rogers, for his part, sticks to Pepsi. Bottled. He says it's not as good as it was during the war. “What kind of forms can he change into?”

Thor shrugs. “My brother has taken the form of a horse, a Frost Giant...” – Confused looks from the rest of them. – “...Frost Giants are blue, monstrous creatures.” Thor's face changes, grows rueful. “They are different from the Aesir,” he says, “but not monstrous to each other. – I suppose that is Loki's true form, and it is the other that is the disguise. – He has taken the form of a woman as well.”

“A hot woman?” Stark looks up.

Maybe if he didn't change forms himself, Banner would find all this more interesting. As it is, he's the only one of them not distracted. “So basically what you're saying is that the machines are useless.” He drinks some tea. It tastes different when it's made from a teabag, instead of poured out of a chai-wallah's pot in Calcutta, but that's not Stark's fault. “We're going to have to use logic to find Loki.”

A pleased nod from Rogers. “That's the only way you find anything.” –

But Thor interrupts. “What I am saying, is that finding Loki should not be our priority. It is an impossible task. My brother will be found when he wants to be found.”

That gets him looks from all three of them. “You're kidding me, right?” Stark's frozen with his glass halfway to his mouth. “No way,” he says. “No fucking way, Thor.” 

“Loki likes familiar places.” Rogers sounds like he's convincing himself. “Where does he know best? He knows Manhattan, right?”

“Well he knows Gallup too,” Banner points out. “And Stuttgart.”

A laugh from Stark. “Where he knows best, is the heli-carrier,” he says. “What if he's holed up on there... – Could he do that, Thor? Could he hide out in the middle of a bunch of military personnel and not get noticed?”

Thor nods. “He could be right in this room and not be noticed; my brother's powers are formidable. It is why I say we should put our energies toward preparing for his attack, rather than toward searching.”

It makes sense, Banner thinks. In a sick kind of way, that Barton's never going to buy in a million years, it makes a lot of sense. “Or for any attack,” he says. “Latest from Dr. Foster is that the readings are slowly going back to normal. Doesn't that mean we're still vulnerable?”

“Until they're completely stable.” Stark nods. “Remember last time? They'd only just started to shift, when the dwarfs showed up.”

Rogers starts, “I don't like just giving up the search...” But Stark speaks over him.

“That's the thing, is we won't. Once it's started, the tech just keeps on running until it finds something. Reindeer Games is going to pop his head out again, and I don't buy that he'll be invisible, disguise or no disguise. But in the meantime, we'll be prepared. We can kick ass on him, or whatever creepazoid decides to show up from a galaxy far, far away.”

\--------------------

The next day while he's out, Tony meets a babe. Okay so sue him: You think just because there's threats all around, ready to strike from all sides, he should stay home and take care of business? Exactly what _business_ is he supposed to take care of? Where's he supposed to look that isn't being looked already? There's a million cameras all over the planet, ready to catch Loki if he so much as farts, and Thor's gone back up to Asgard to see if Daddy's got any idea where he might be. They're sitting ducks right now, because any moment, invisi-Loki might jump out and yell “booga-booga,” at them. – Plus of course there's about ten other Realms watching their every move and getting ready who knows what kind of attack. -- Well excuse me folks, but Tony Stark doesn't do sitting duck very well. He didn't get where he was by waiting around for something to jump at him. Tony Stark's all about taking the fight to the other guy. And if he has to wait for a while before he can find the other guy, Tony Stark's all about not going crazy while he waits.

And so he goes out. And while he's out, he meets a babe. She's your typical New York beauty: Long legs, in those skinny jeans that show off every curve, topped with a black coat with the collar up, your standard purse (bright green, gold-trimmed) that's big enough to carry half of Manhattan in it, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, and sunglasses covering deep-green eyes like cat's eyes. He meets her at the coffee place that's kitty-corner from Stark Tower, the one that still does a full selection of regular coffee drinks, as well as the crap ones that are all syrup and whipped cream and flavorings, where the scones are always fresh, and no one looks twice at you if you order five shots of espresso in your Americano.

She's sitting by the window that looks out on Stark Tower. Her legs are crossed, and she's got one black boot-heel hooked on the rung of her barstool, in a way that shows off both her legs and her ass, like you wouldn't believe. She's got a Kindle out, and her head's bent to read. Just for a moment, he gets a good look at her like that, with her dark bangs falling forward so all you can see of her face is the teeny tip of her nose. Then she looks up at him and she smiles.

“You must be Tony Stark.”

“I don't know that there's any 'must' about it.”

She laughs and points to the circle of blue light, visible through the second “B” on his old Black Sabbath t-shirt, and he realizes that no, she's not some creepy stalker-girl, she just knows how to put two and two together.

“Last I heard, those weren't being marketed for the general public yet.”

Her eyes really are very green, and her smile is friendly. Tony smiles back at her. “Point well taken.” He jerks his head toward the counter. “I was just going to get some breakfast. You want anything?”

Mystery-girl holds up her cup. “You could freshen this.”

“What is it?”

“Pecan pie latte with extra whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles.”

_Oh my god girl,_ – Just the thought is enough to make him shudder. – _where's your taste?_ Oh well, he's always up to do a bit of education for a good cause. Tony takes the cup.

When he gets back with the girl's ~~sugar-bomb~~ drink, and his own breakfast sandwich and Venti Americano, Tony finds her back deep in her book again. She looks up as he sets the cup in front of her, just the coolest smile on her face. Whoever she is, she's not kow-towing over Tony Stark-the-billionaire-playboy, that's one point in her favor. 

As he sits, “I don't believe I caught your name.”

Again with the smile: Friendly, maybe just a little bit of a sexy flirt to it. ...Or is that just his horny imagination? “I'm Luca.”

She puts out her hand: Soft, white, with bitten-short, black-painted nails that speak to how young she is. – Oh god, Pepper will _kill_ him if she catches him robbing the cradle like this! She's a college student, at most...

“So…” He glances toward the Kindle. “You’re studying something?”

“Just reading.” Luca lets her eyes travel all the way up and down his body. Her smile gets ...a little bit hotter. “Should I be studying?”

“You look like a college student.” – Stylewise. Agewise, she looks about 16, max. – “I assumed.”

A soft laugh. Men would be at her knees just for that laugh. “Don't worry Mr. Stark, I'm of age. I just enjoy reading.”

“Beauty and brains.” Lucky he's ordered his coffee in a To-Go cup, because Tony doesn't think they'll be spending much more time here this morning. “Listen, what say you ditch the diabetic's nightmare there,” -- He nods toward her cup, still brimming whipped cream and sprinkles. -- “and come back to my place. You ever seen a superheroes' headquarters before?”

“Not all that often.” Her smile's hot, and very, very devious. “But I want to finish my drink first.” The tongue goes into the whipped cream. – Jesus Christ, how many kids her age have wet dreams about this babe and whipped cream? – “I never tried this flavor before today.”


	16. Attack on Washington

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing like an alien invasion to cock-block a guy.

Fortunately, the penthouse is deserted. Steve's at the gym, and Clint and Natasha are off doing whatever they do together. Thor's still back in Asgard talking to Daddy, and Bruce... Well Bruce is somewhere that's not here, and right now that's just fine. Bringing a babe home is a good way to keep himself busy while he waits for a development in the Loki case, but it's not something he wants to explain to the others.

Luca comes in and she goes to the window. She looks out, probably admiring the view. Tony goes to the kitchen. He sets down his food, barely noticing that he hasn't eaten, hasn't had any coffee since he got up this morning. 

“So, the Avengers meet here?” Luca turns as he comes back toward her, giving him another look at those green, green eyes.

“We kind of live here.” A shrug. “Not all the time, but when we're working on something important.”

Luca unbuttons her coat. It falls open, showing something green and silky, a little bit clingy. “Oh really.” She slides it off her shoulders. – Tony's right there to take it from her. – “Are you working on something important right now?”

_Don't tell her about Loki, don't tell her about Loki! There's nothing that turns a chick off worse, than finding out a psychopathic super-villain might show up right when she starts to get comfortable._ “You know that thing with the aliens visiting the President?”

There's that smile again. “The dwarfs, you mean? And the ...Vanir, I think they're called?” She sits, the sofa already twice as sexy for having her on it. “You're involved in that?”

“We're right in the middle of it.” Where her coat ended up, like where his food ended up, he's not exactly sure, but where Tony Stark ended up? He's right next to Luca on the sofa, and her hands are all over his body. Luca, she takes what she wants. “We were at both meetings,” he says.

“Hmmm,” a humming murmur that might mean, _oh, that's so interesting Tony,_ or _shut your damn mouth so I can kiss you._

“We were in charge of the guy who restored balance to Earth.”

“Less talking, more kissing.” Okay now, that's clear.

Somewhere around the time that the green blouse comes off, he hears the beeping of his cell phone. He ignores it. Of course. His own damn fault for not setting the thing on Vibrate when he got back here. Then some time goes by. His shirt is off, and one of her boots. Her dark hair is down and tangled across their faces. The scent's ...just vaguely familiar. He smelled something like it once, but he can't for the life of him remember when. It's around the time that he goes after the skinny jeans that he hears the noises.

He's got the zipper undone, both thumbs hooked into the waistband. There's the first little peek of her panties. – Green of course. – And he doesn't recognize the sound of the elevator doors until he also hears stomping feet, and “oh my god, Stark, _seriously_?”

Natasha's gorgeous when she's pissed off (and this is totally not the right time to tell her that). Tony takes just a minute to be glad it wasn't the Captain that walked in on him, anyway. Then he grins up at her from over Luca's shoulder. “You've heard of stress relief, haven't you?”

He sits up, grabbing for his shirt from wherever the hell it fell when they pulled it off. “Luca, meet Natasha Romanov. Natasha, this is Luca.”

Luca's about as unembarrassed as a girl can get, meeting a government master-spy in nothing but her bra and panties. This chick has some serious _guts_. “How do you do?” Coolly, she slides back into the green blouse, then reaches up to put her hair back into its ponytail. “Your leader was just showing me around Avengers Headquarters.”

Cold steely glare from Natasha. “No I was not,” he finds himself sputtering. “Just the couch. – We never got past the couch.” This does not make the glare go away.

“I see I'm interrupting something,” Luca murmurs. “Let me get out of your way.”

Tony finds his shirt. He runs his fingers through his hair (which at least makes it as tidy as it usually is) and stands up. “So Natasha,” he says. “You could have called.”

Cold glare from brown eyes says, “I did.”

“Or knocked.” On the elevator door. Yeah right, that would totally have worked. He's fast losing the moral high ground here.

“Forgive me,” the Black Widow says sarcastically. “I was distracted. Fury called. – Did he get hold of you?”

“Ehh…” Okay, so he's gaping like a fish here. “Um... Yeah?” So _that's_ who was on the phone. Oh fuck. Not to mention, where is his phone? 

When a slim white hand puts it into his, Tony barely notices. His mind is on Natasha. 

“Alien attack. We have to suit up and get to Washington.”

“Aliens? As in those guys that gave us the bilgesnipes?”

“As in giant blue monsters.” --

A faint, indrawn breath from the sofa. --

“Fury says he saw them shooting ice out of their hands.”

“And so naturally we...” – Tony looks over at Luca. He wonders if she's the kind to feel hurt when she's ditched for an alien invasion. – “So we have to go stop them. What about the others?”

“Fury's already there. Clint's taking the rest of us over in the SHIELD jet.” An impatient little puff of breath. “You've got your own transport, we know that. But when you didn't answer any of our calls...”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. The Avengers: On call 24 hours a day.” He looks over at Luca again. She's just putting her boots on, sliding the black suede up those long, curvy, long, shapely legs. “Listen babe, seems I've got a previous engagement I didn't know about.”

“Of course. You're a superhero.” Smart girl.

“Listen, if you want to stick around until I come back... JARVIS will take care of you, get you anything you want. You can order in if you're hungry.”

He doesn't have to look at Natasha; her glare is hot enough to scorch. “ _Tony_...”

“My tower, my rules. Luca's a nice girl.” – As you can tell by the fact that she was ready for him five minutes after they met. – “She won't do any harm.” – And if she tries, that's what JARVIS is there for, if you hadn't noticed. – “It's not like she's connected with a bunch of freezing blue giants from space.”

The two girls eye each other, and for a minute it looks like things are headed into catfight territory (not that that wouldn't be fuckin' hot). Then Natasha gives another irritated snort. She pulls out her cell phone, dials, starts talking into it about “a new development.” Then when she turns back to Tony, she gives him her bossy, on-the-other-side look. “We haven't located Bruce yet.”

“So maybe you want me to stay and give him a ride when he shows up?”

A shake of her head. “Bruce is a big boy. He'll call when he gets the message.” _Unlike some people,_ her look says. “Meanwhile, we need you. Those giant frost-things aren't waiting their attack until everyone gets there.”

From the sofa: “Bruce?”

“Bruce Banner,” Tony says. “Nice guy, kind of rumply. He's probably out doing good deeds or something. Listen, can you tell him we're looking for him when he comes in?”

That gritting sound you're hearing? That's Natasha's teeth grinding, as she drags Tony into the elevator.


	17. An Unexpected Messenger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Loki delivers a message, and Bruce Banner proves to have unexpected persuasive gifts.

Banner's actually just downstairs from the penthouse. That water purification system Stark's been working on: He's got the specs plugged into one of his prototype tables, along with some other plans that look like they might be useful. With all the extra time they've had, just waiting around for Loki to show up, Banner's actually been down there working on it a few times. – The problem is going to be synthesizing the vibranium in in large enough quantities to keep costs down. The rest is pretty easy. – He's a little surprised someone didn't bother coming for him, Stark maybe, before all the Avengers suited up and got out of there. 

The first he knows that they did get out of there, it's because his shoulders cramp up so bad that he's got to take a break from the prototype-table. He stands, rolling them, trying to stretch some of the soreness out. It occurs to him that maybe he might better get some food too, before he goes back to work. Then it occurs to him that there's this almighty itch on his ass, like right where his Stark-phone sits in his pocket. Then he takes it out, and ...Holy crap, the entire world's been trying to get him! You'd think someone would have thought to just look downstairs? 

Well it wouldn't bother him if they gave an alien invasion and _didn't_ invite him for a change. But these are his friends ...sort of. They're the guys he's fought alongside anyway. If they want him to suit up – Which in his case, means getting those angry feelings _right to the surface_ , so the Other Guy's ready to go just when they need him. – well he'd better do it. Natasha says there are giant blue frost-monsters, menacing Washington. Who better to fight back than a giant _green_ anger-monster? And he calls Natasha back, tells her he'll wait at the penthouse until SHIELD picks him up, and then meet the others in Washington.

Which just gives him time for breakfast. He's running over in his mind: Is there any food in the penthouse? Stark said he was going to have his friend Pepper pick some up, but has she yet? Haven't they been ordering take-out since they got here? Then when he gets to the kitchen, there's a To-Go coffee cup and a bakery bag on the counter, just as if somebody knew he was coming (except the food's all ice-cold). Banner unwraps the sandwich and takes several hungry bites, cold or no cold. He goes over to the sofa: He's going to sit down for his breakfast at least. From the way Natasha sounded, it might be his last chance to relax for quite some time.

It's when he goes over to the sofa, that he gets his next surprise: There's a woman sitting there. She's got long glamorous legs, and long dark hair. She looks like the kind of celebrity you're always seeing on Tony Stark's arm in all the tabloids, but what in the world is she doing here, now? Banner's seen Stark do a lot of stuff, but leaving beautiful women behind in the penthouse, while he goes and does Avengers-stuff? That, he's never seen.

“Bruce Banner, I presume?” She looks up at him over her Kindle. Her eyes are deep-green and very knowing. He's seen those eyes before somewhere ...Hasn't he?

“I'm supposed to give you a message.” The girl's curled up comfortably on the sofa. She looks perfectly relaxed. “Aliens are attacking Washington.”

Yeah. He knows.

“The others went on without you.”

...And he could have figured that part out. – Stark's new friend seems awfully _calm_ about an all-out alien attack, it occurs to him. Wasn't she here when the Chitauri invaded? The question sort of gets into his head, and then it buzzes around there. It adds to the strangeness.

“You have the advantage on me.” He takes his glasses off and polishes them. – When he gets uncomfortable he usually takes his glasses off and polishes them. It's like a habit or something. – And there's something about the girl's blurred outlines. They look familiar somehow. Banner puts his glasses back on. “We haven't met.” He offers the girl his hand. “I'm Bruce Banner, and you are?”

The girl gives a curly little smile. She looks like the cat that just got all the cream. “My name is Luca.”

Luca... It's the name that puts things together for him. What was it Thor said: “ _My brother has taken the form of a woman as well._ ” And then Stark asked if she was hot. Well, it looks like he's gotten his answer now, doesn't it?

“You're Loki.” He just blurts it out.

Girl-Loki's smile just gets bigger. “And you're very smart, Dr. Banner. Stark never thought to notice.”

_That's probably because he was thinking with his penis..._ “How did you get in here?” Banner asks.

“I magicked my way in.” Girl-Loki laughs (it's a very cute laugh). “No, but seriously: Stark invited me. We met at the coffee place on the corner. He was going to have breakfast, but he decided he'd rather have me instead.”

Girl-Loki doesn’t bother changing back to her male form ( _his_ male form?). She just sits curled up comfortably on the sofa, with her long legs tucked under her, and her green silk top riding a little bit low, and showing two of the reasons Stark brought her home.

“And you're just going to stay here?” Banner stares at her. He can't help it. The girl is so Loki, and she's also so ...not. And she so doesn't belong here, with all of them gone. 

“That's the plan,” Girl-Loki says coolly. “You have an alien invasion to take care of. Don't let me stop you.”

_And you're just going to stay here..._ Dammit, why can't he get his mind past that? “I can't let you stay here,” Banner says.

“Oh really?” Girl-Loki laughs her same cute little laugh again. “And how will you stop me?” Her smile's suddenly the same Loki-smile he's used to, with the glint in the eyes that says. _I'll do anything to win_.

But they shared a pizza together. They watched... What was it they watched on TV?

And he's got... -- Jesus, how much time does he have until SHIELD shows up? Five minutes? Maybe ten? -- Ten minutes, to talk down a super-villain, who's already shown that he'll do fucking-anything to succeed, and who doesn't-doesn't- _doesn't_ want to go back to his extraterrestrial prison.

Banner sits down next to Girl-Loki on the sofa. “You know how _I'll_ stop you,” he says. “Only it won't be me, it'll be the Other Guy.”

“Not if I...” Glimpse of Loki's desperate-crazy grin, on Girl-Loki's beautiful face.

“If you what? If you kill some more people? – The Other Guy can't be killed, you know.”

“If I decide to escape, you won't catch me.” The desperate leaves Loki's face as fast as it got there. She's just sitting on the sofa talking calmly. “Do you think this is the only other form I can take?”

He's got to admit, he's a little curious. He's got another form himself after all. How interesting to talk to someone who shape-shifts on purpose. But he's already used ...how much time? Any minute now, a SHIELD agent will be walking in the door.

“You'll still be running.” His theory is, they're not going to stop Loki. They missed the chance to do that when Thor left the cuffs off him on top of Shiprock. Now he's loose in the world, like nuclear power or the super-flu. There's no putting this genie back in the bottle.

...Or of course what's-his-name, Odin, the All-Father might be able to reach down and grab his errant son and take him home for a spanking as soon as the realms are in balance again. In which case, forget the theories, they were wrong. Scientists can't stop theorizing just because they're wrong sometimes.

“What's your ultimate plan, Loki?”

The green eyes shift just a little. The confident smile is ...a little less confident. “I did what All-Father asked me to.” Loki stretches. She gives Banner a good look at all the beauty that pulled Stark in so easily. She smiles again, determined, a little bit challenging. “I deserve my freedom in return.”

Freedom. To do what? Banner doesn't say anything. How do you negotiate with rogue powers? Oh great, now he's got to be a negotiator, as well as a scientist, and a doctor, _and_ a huge green rage-monster. He keeps Loki's gaze ...or Loki lets him keep his maybe.

“I've grown to like Midgard,” the rogue power (with the black curls and the green-green eyes) says. “I'm staying here. And don't worry.” She laughs adorably. “If I want to take over again, I'll do it through legal means. I can be persuasive when I want to be.”

“Legal means?” Okay, call him dumb, but trying to think of Loki and legal anything at the same time is a real strain for the brain.

“I'll get elected, you fool.” A shade of the real Loki in her irritation. “For...” She waves her hand, a little vague. “...For President or Prime Minster. – Whatever you call your kings here.”

“Don't you mean your Queens?” This short of time, he's thinking maybe it would be easier if he did let the Hulk out and just pummeled Loki into submission before SHIELD got here. Only one thing really stops him: It's hard to get the Other Guy back in, once he's out. So it's time to give the negotiation one more try. “I’m not saying I doubt your ability to get elected.” Banner keeps his voice calm. “I mean, if you tone down the 'kneel before me, you were made to be ruled,' crap and all. You're smart, we both know that. -- You could start by helping with the alien invasion.”

“Why?” There's a shimmer and Loki reverts to male-form. He's not in armor yet, but Banner lets himself think it's a good first step. 

“Well for one thing it'll go a long way toward making people forget that you unleashed an alien army on them, if you help take down another one. Elections are popularity contests. You don't just get born into being a ruler. – Besides, maybe you don't want to be the most hated man on Earth for the rest of your life.” 

Loki narrows his eyes. “I will take another form.”

“So in other words, you're going to keep running.”

He hears the retort before Loki can make it: _As if you aren't running yourself, Dr. Banner?_ The answers, the way his situation is different, come ready to his tongue. Neither of them has time to say any of them though, because that's when the elevator doors open. Agent Hill walks into the room,

“Are you ready, Dr. Banner?”

“Not quite.” He gestures toward the other man on the sofa. Better get it out in the open now: SHIELD, we've got a situation here.

Loki looks at him with a cool look in his green eyes. “Hadn't you better go?” He makes a shooing motion with his hands. “The Avengers have an invasion to stop. Far be it from me to keep you from it.”

It's the voice that makes Agent Hill's body go tense. She's not a fool to forget hearing it on board the heli-carrier. She throws a quick look toward Banner, indicating her gun with a gesture.

Yeah, because that'll be so successful. 

“Should I call Director Fury?” ...Who did such a good job of stopping Loki the other time.

“I am an invited guest here, Ms. Hill.” That voice of his, so calm, so perfectly superior sounding: He could be planning total havoc and destruction, or a nice afternoon spent reading and watching TV, and you'd never know the difference from his voice. “Your Mr. Stark was so kind.”

A muttered epithet from Agent Hill: “ _Stark_...”

“I may have looked different at the time.” A shimmer: Girl-Loki is there for a moment only. Then he shimmers back to his usual form. “Dr. Banner was kind enough to welcome me like this.” He glances toward Agent Hill's holster, just _glances_ , and a pile of gun-dust is falling to the floor at her feet. “Please don't waste my time by questioning their hospitality.”

“You’re not welcome here.” Agent Hill looks at Banner. “Did Stark really... And did you?”

A nod. What is there he can say?

“Well what are you going to do about it?” She throws a look Loki's way, then looks back at Banner. If anyone's eyes ever said _let the monster out_ , Agent Hill's do now. Because you know, the Other Guy's just this easy, useful weapon, and everyone knows better about how to use him than the guy that actually has to _live_ with him and all. 

“We're leaving him here, Agent Hill.”

Her eyes get wide and angry. She opens her mouth, closes it again.

“I'm needed to fight whatever those things are in Washington.” –

“Frost Giants,” Loki says from the sofa. “My kin in other words. Monsters. Stupid, brute-monsters.” 

Oh, Banner is _so_ not letting him go emo on them right now. Loki's wasted enough of their time, if he's not going to help. Let him stay here on the goddamn sofa. Let him run for the rest of his life since he's so determined. –-

“The Hulk.” Just the two words, from Agent Hill.

Banner gives an impatient sigh. “Yeah, and you're going to get him into the jet _how_ , afterward? And find the cuffs and things so you can secure Loki? He was invited. He'll stay. Some battles can't be won.”

“I’m not running, Banner.” Loki's voice is snooty. He runs his finger down the lapel of the very-perfect suit, that's replaced his very-perfect girl's clothes from before. “Midgard's battles are not mine.”

“Fine, whatever. – Agent Hill?” Getting her to leave is harder than he expected. SHIELD does a good job of training their agents not to leave war criminals running free.

“I did what I promised to do,” Loki says. “I already did your Realm a huge service, more than enough to make recompense for the harm I did before.”

Banner doesn't respond. He has to practically drag Agent Hill, but he gets her moving, and together, they start for the elevator.

“I am not going back to Odin's prison.” This one shouted, just as the elevator doors close. Banner hears the ping, as they start downward. Then a moment later inside the elevator, he sees a shimmer and, “Redemption, what does that even mean?” Loki is demanding angrily.

“You puny mortals are all going to die in a few years anyway. Why work to save those already under sentence of death?” Down, down they go. Loki's wearing his battle armor now. He carries a weapon, not the sceptre with the blue stone in it, but a sword. “I am only doing this for when I rule you later,” he says. “Your people love war heroes, is that not so?”


	18. Washington Attacked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Thor finds the All-Father of little help to him, and his brother of more.

Asgard is a realm at war, when Thor returns, only to see if his father can tell him where Loki has gone. Terrifying to see Odin, All-Father no more, or rather, struggling to defend his position as All-Father, when the imbalance of the realms has deprived him of the power to do it. -- Terrifying? No, shaming rather. That he should return only to place another burden on his father's shoulders: The admission that he has failed to keep his brother restrained, and now needs Odin's help to find him.

“Your brother is very near your friends.” Father's gaze penetrates his soul. One-eyed, he yet sees more than any. – More, even, than Heimdall, who's skill as a Watcher is unmatched. He studies Thor's face. “How is it that you failed to notice, my son?”

What is there to say? He has never been known for his vision; his skill has ever been that of a warrior. But Father does not want to hear it. – Indeed, he has no time to hear it, for even now, the Jotnar advance. Valaskjalf will be overwhelmed.

“And now you ask that I find him for you?” No anger, but sternness, in his father's voice, and that stings worse than any anger. “Go back and search, son. Search with your mind instead of with your eyes. Loki knows that you favor strength over wisdom, and he is quick to use that against you.”

Thor nods. – Say he nods? Rather, he bows his head. “I have failed you, Father.”

Odin shakes his head. “Your brother was ever a puzzle to me. Intelligent beyond any in Asgard, yet his maturity has ever lagged behind his intelligence. He fails to understand that wisdom unites, where mere cleverness divides. He forces us apart now, and I fear the consequences will be dire.” He looks toward the window. Outside, Thor can hear the noises of battle. The Jotnar are formidable warriors, and the Aesir fight now, with neither him nor the All-Father at their head. Fear crawls in his stomach. This fight is not about the dignity of his realm, but about its very survival.

“Father, let me stay. I would fight at your side.” Always when there is a battle, his instinct is to wage it. He knows the strength of his right arm, the power that he wields when he holds Mjolnir.

“No, son.” Odin puts a hand on his arm. His voice is gentle, but that merely makes his words more painful. “Don't you see? This is the price you pay – That we all must pay. – for your blindness on Midgard. Loki is loose, and mayhap still mad with power, as he was after he fell from the Bifrost. Your first duty is to find him and save him being a danger to the people of Midgard. You must go back, son. I will use the power of the Tesseract to return you.”

And that is more time that Odin will take from battle. Shame crawls again, the horrible awareness that he is even now, depriving the warriors of Asgard of their commander, by his carelessness, by his foolish gullibility in the face of Loki's schemes. And he captures his brother, he prays that there will still be an Asgard to bring him to.

“Yes Father.” He says the words very low. “But pray you, let us do it quickly.”

\--------------------

The power of the Tesseract takes him, not to where he left from, but to where his friends are. Whirled through time and space by the force of it, Thor closes his eyes. When his feet touch land, he opens them. He is accustomed enough to using the Tesseract for travel, that it feels natural, almost expected. What he sees when he looks around, is not what he was expecting, though. Instead of Tony's floor-to-ceiling windows and spacious sofa, a wide street, buildings on both sides, and a staircase behind them. Instead of Bruce's kind gaze, or Natasha's keener one, the set looks of a line of Jotun warriors.

“But the Jotnar attack Asgard.” In his surprise, he speaks aloud.

“The whats? They do what?” He hears Steve's voice from behind him, a moment before a projectile shoots past his right ear, and he sees his shield hit one of the Jotnar.

“I thought you said they were Frost Giants.” Another projectile, larger, proves to be Tony. He hovers a foot above the ground and removes the headpiece of his armor, just long enough to give Thor a welcoming grin. “Good to have you back, big guy. Did Daddy tell you where we can find your baby brother?” A swing of a Jotun spear. – One of their warriors has noticed that he is in range. – Tony dodges without a moment to spare. “No never mind, screw Reindeer Games. Wherever he is, he can go fuck himself.” He shoots laser after laser into the massed Jotun force. “If these are Frost Giants, why aren't my lasers fucking melting them?”

The Jotnar are massed in the center of the street. From his vantage point in front of the stairs, Thor can make out row after row of their heads. How many are there? A better question: How can they spare this many, and still have troops enough to attack Asgard as well? He is reminded of the Chitauri, whose numbers also seemed never-ending. But the Chitauri were easy to stop. Their bodies were brittle, as were their strange half-animate flying machines. These are the Jotnar. They are brute warriors, but their physical strength goes far toward making up for their lack of strategy.

“It is their weapons that are ice, not their bodies.” Even as he calls the explanation to Tony, Thor sees a blue-skinned giant attack. He remembers the warnings he was given growing up: Never let one of the Jotnar touch your skin, else it freezes and the flesh dies. Fortunate for Tony that he is wearing his suit. Although the icy touch freezes him solid to the ground and immobilizes him. Thor turns, swinging Mjolnir, ready to break the ice. 

“No.” Steve is scarce holding off two more giants, but he catches Thor's arm and stops him. “That cold, the metal will probably shatter along with the ice. Let me instead.” Ducking under one giant, and putting out his foot to trip the second as he passes, me moves to a clear spot where he can throw his shield. 

“We're still ahead of them anyway.” Natasha, to his left, sits at the wheel of a roofless Midgardian vehicle. “Fury's called for reinforcements, but the nearest installation is in Virginia.” 

“And this Virginia?”

“Is 100 miles away. – The mayor's calling for police support for us, but that's going to take time too. We don't want them to get past us.”

“That's the Capitol in back of us.” Steve's shield has done what Thor's hammer could not, and Tony is free again ...for now, at any rate. He hovers above the ground, knocking giants willy-nilly with repulsor blasts. “I can think of a few politicians I wouldn't mind seeing frozen.”

“They get past us, they're going to keep going to the White House,” Natasha says. “Fury says the President... On no account...” –

“You kidding me?” As fast as Steve's shield knocks them over, the Jotnar just stand again, and yet he perseveres. Because it is all he can do as yet, Thor thinks. “They get past us, they're going straight down the National Mall. This is Christmas Break. There'll be tourists there. With their kids.”

They aren't making a dent on the Jotnar as yet. Steve's shield, Tony's repulsors, even Mjolnir: None of them do more than knock the warriors down, so they can stand again and keep coming. “It's only those two buildings that's keeping them contained, isn't it?” Thor looks to one side of the street, then to the other.

“Library of Congress on one side, Supreme Court on the other,” Tony says. He utters a short laugh, metallic-sounding from under his helmet. “Wouldn't mind seeing 'em freeze some Supreme Court justices either.”

“Where's Clint?”

Natasha points upward, behind them, toward the balcony at the top of the stairs. With her pointing, Thor realizes what else he's been seeing fly past above his head. He watches as the next arrow, flame-tipped, hits and fells a Jotun warrior. This one at least, will not rise again.

“And the Hulk?”

“Agent Hill just radioed. She's bringing Bruce down in the SHIELD jet. She says...” Natasha swallows. “...She says your brother's with them.”

“Loki's with them?” Tony's voice from his right this time, as he sends a particularly large blast into a mass of the Jotnar. “So what – So we'll have to fight him too?”

If his brother wanted a fight, why would he bring it here? Sudden, dire suspicion, and he stops dead in his tracks for a moment. The Jotnar, taking advantage, push him backward, up three steps of the staircase.

“You don't suppose he's made a deal to lead this army too?” Steve echoes his thoughts.

“He could not have.” Thor speaks to reassure himself as well as his comrades. “Loki slew their last king in cold blood. There is no way they would fight under his leadership.”

“This is Loki.” Natasha's voice is grim. “He talked his way into our center of command.” She throws a dark look Tony's way; Thor's not sure why. “I say there's no way to be sure of anything.” 

“Well we need somebody, soon.” Steve is just below Thor on the stairs now, and the Jotnar crowd closer and closer. “Bruce, the police... – Better yet, all of them, and however many troops they can spare from Virginia.”

They need his brother, Thor thinks. He remembers the powers of illusion he relied upon – And never appreciated properly! – in so many battles. The Avengers speak of troops coming hundreds of miles? Of squads of policemen summoned from throughout the city? With but a few words, Loki can create squads, troop upon troop of doppelgangers, to keep the Jotnar busy. A few more words, and he can shroud their surroundings in fog, and confuse their foes into fighting amongst themselves.

He notices the SHIELD jet, because of the shadow that's suddenly there, darkening the heads of the Jotnar warriors, a few columns back. A few giants look up, not many; unfamiliar with Midgardian technology, no doubt they do not know what is coming. Thor knows though. As soon as he sees the outer door open, before the plane has landed, he knows.

The Hulk is slightly shorter than most of the Jotnar, but he is twice one of them in breadth, and in strength, he is easily the equal of three or more. He lands on the ground in a squat, then rises, his usual furious snarl already in place, and grabs the first giant he sees. That one goes flying, knocking down several more. Then the Jotnar move in, and Thor can see nothing, but a mass of blue bodies, obscuring the one green one.

“What is our strategy?” Now that Hulk has their foe distracted, at least for now, it is time to confer with his comrades. 

“You mean like how can we help Hulk?” Natasha looks toward the battle, then glances up at the balcony above them. “Clint's already on it.”

Sure enough once he looks, Thor can see the flame-tipped arrows find their targets. He sees Jotun warriors falling. But so few. And from a company of so many.

His concern must show on his face. “We're still waiting on the police department.” Steve sounds defensive. “It takes time to pull that many cops off their beats in that many places. – The SWAT team was already deployed when this started, or they'd be here by now.”

“Agent Hill says SHIELD's bringing a company of soldiers in the heli-carrier.”

A metallic laugh comes from Stark. “So they fixed that thing after what Loki did to it?” His voice stops. “Hey, what about Reindeer Games?” He looks at Thor. “I hear he's coming. You got any idea why?”

What is he to say? His friends do not want to know that the last time he understood his brother – Has he ever understood his brother? – was when they were children together on Asgard. They don't want to hear assurances, after he let Loki escape from them in New Mexico.

There's scarce time to speak anyhow, for the Jotnar are advancing. Hulk is a distraction, his might and invulnerability alike, a surprise to an army that had expected to find only mortals. But he is but one creature. At his most furious, he can only be in one place, fighting but a few warriors at a time, and the Jotnar are beginning to realize it.

Already, Thor finds himself being pushed upward again. Giants surge up toward the balcony, and in such close surroundings, he dare not wield Mjolnir, for fear of destroying the staircase he stands on. He sees Tony shoot past in his suit, hears Natasha's shouted words: “Contain them.” But how to contain so numerous a foe? How to surround, when the defending force is outnumbered by so many?

Thor makes a tactical move to the balcony: He can dispatch giants there, as they come up. – Or perhaps it would be better to destroy the staircase, and their access to this “Capitol” building, so important to Midgard's rulers?

A start, and he realizes there is someone beside him. Thor turns, with Mjolnir at ready.

“You're right,” a familiar voice says. “And we save this misbegotten realm, the Midgardians can build as many new staircases as they wish.”

Thor does not see the staircase crumble. One minute he is looking into his brother's green eyes. The next, when he turns, he sees the blue heads of many Jotun warriors tumbling, to land in a sprawl, on their comrades below.

“Brother,” he says. “But how... You were on the Midgardian jet.”

“Which takes an immortal time to land. Was I really supposed to sit in there and wait? I only stayed this long, because Dr. Banner and I were talking, until the beast came out.” 

Loki surveys the massed Jotnar below. “ _Really_ , what would you do without me, Thunderer?” He raises a hand. His lips move. The familiar shimmer, and suddenly there are Thor's everywhere. The air is filled with copies of Tony and Steve.

“But Steve cannot fly...” It's all he can think of to say.

A snort from Loki. “And you think these blue brutes know that?” He opens his mouth. The fog he remembers from other times they've fought together is next, Thor is sure of it. Then Loki stops. “Wait. How do your friends fight this army?”

“How do you think? The same way we fought you and your Chitauri.”

“In other words, with projectiles? Best no fog then.” He takes a breath, seems to think. “How many are there of you?”

Joy at fighting alongside his brother again, wars with concern. Loki is right; the advantage is not theirs. “Just the Avengers,” he says. “ But reinforcements are coming.”

“More weak mortals to die as soon as the Jotnar touch them?”

“Well... Lots of them.” All the joy is draining away, as he realizes the odds against victory.

“I am Jotun.” His brother thinks aloud. “If I take my true form... – Who leads this army, brother?”

“I know not.” Is it tactful at this point, to admit that all the Jotnar look alike to him?

A muttered comment: “You're no use.” Loki's image blurs, then re-forms itself. He grows taller, broader … – _Bluer,_ that is the most disturbing part of the change. He did not fully realize his brother's heritage until he saw him like this, Thor thinks. – What stands before him now is a Frost Giant.

“You look like all the others,” he murmurs, dazed.

“Look closer. See the markings?” Loki moves his hand along his body, shows the raised bumps of tattoo ...or bone? “Fortunate Laufey kept me at least long enough to have these done.” Loki sounds like he is talking more to himself than to Thor. “No doubt he did not want to abandon me, ere Helblindi was born, and he had another heir.”

“What's with the holograms?” Tony's voice announces his arrival, startling Thor away from his contemplation of his brother. “I just saw ten Black Widows fly past me down there. – Hey...” He breaks off, stares at Loki himself. “What the fuck, Thor, he's right there: Go ahead and hit him before more get here.”

More what's? More Frost Giants... His mind works slowly, and things are changing so fast. “Friend Tony, this is my brother,” Thor says.

“This is Reindeer Games?” Tony removes his helmet and stares bare-faced, as if doubting what he sees. “You're kidding me, right? Is this some kind of magic?”

“This is my brother's true form.”

“You weren't kidding when you said he was adopted.” Tony brings his iron suit to rest on the balcony next to them. “What, there weren't any babies in Asgard your dad could have brought home?”

“My brother has a plan.”

“Yeah, and we all should listen to the guy who's last plan destroyed half of Manhattan, and earned him the beating of his life from the Hulk?”

“What choice do you have?” Loki strives for lightness, but Thor can hear the anger in his voice. “My brother tells me your reinforcements are mere mortals, and still far-distant. And my plan fails, you are free to go back to your own, and send however many Midgardians you want to their death, at the hands of the Jotnar. – Did Thor tell you yet, what happens when one of them touches your bare flesh?”

“Your flesh freezes,” Thor says, “wherever they touch. We have lost many Aesir warriors, just to that.”

“Your armor is no protection, Stark. The touch of the Jotnar can shatter metal.” Tony opens his mouth, but Loki continues, speaking over him. “And do not tell me about your 'tech', and how it can save you. Mayhap it can, I do not know. But I give you the chance to save Earth, and the rest of your team. Is that not better than avenging them after they are gone?”

Tony huffs a breath of irritation. “Fine,” he says. “Tell us your plan, Loki.”

Loki's new form is disturbing. And he did not know better, Thor had thought he was speaking to a Frost Giant. He gazes at Tony and Thor with red, Jotun eyes.

“I will tell them I am Helblindi and lead the Jotnar away from here.”

“Helwho?” From Tony.

“The son of their king, Laufey. I killed Laufey,” Loki says. “Logic tells me that his son must have succeeded him to the throne.”

“Did he just say he killed his own father?” Tony looks at Thor for a minute, then back at Loki again. “So you pose at their king, and you're going to say what? 'Surrender or else'?”

Loki nods. “I will call it a tactical retreat. With the realms in flux, there are many bridges, leading from realm to realm. Soon as they stabilize, that will not be so. The Jotnar do not want to be trapped here, in this hot climate.”

“Hot? 45 degrees?” Tony pauses, then nods. “Yeah, I guess for a bunch of ice-creatures. Okay...”

“Brother, a thought:” Thor interrupts, his voice urgent. He would be sure this plan will work, ere risking his brother's life like this. “To me, all the Jotnar look alike, but not to themselves, surely?”

“Do you doubt me?” Loki tilts his head, narrowing his red eyes. They’re so different from his usual  
green eyes that it's all Thor can do, not to look away. “These are mere footsoldiers. They have never seen their king. I wear the royal markings of the sons of Laufey, because I am a son of Laufey. Those peasants,” – He throws a scornful look at the massed Jotnar below the balcony. “will not know the difference.”

He straightens, and his posture becomes regal. Thor remembers meeting Laufey after their sortie in his realm. And he knew not better, he'd think this was he. He proceeds forward, an ice-bridge forming as he moves, to take him downward. Below him, the Jotnar look up. Slowly, as Thor watches, more and more of them turn their attention toward the figure on the ice bridge.

“He's gonna get killed down there,” Tony says.

“He is my brother. He will not.” Brave words, but in truth, the doubts are there. Has there ever been such a deception? Loki killed the king of the Frost Giants, and now he poses as their successor. – Does he resemble Helblindi enough to get away with it? Thor cannot tell. And if he should slip up and be revealed as the regicide Loki, what will his fate be?

“Attention!” Loki speaks from just below the balcony, the massed Jotnar slowly pressing backward, making room, so that all can hear. “It is your King that speaks.”

“What's he saying?” Tony, still next to Thor on the balcony, speaks in an undertone.

It is only now that Thor realizes his brother is speaking in the tongue of the Jotnar. He turns to Tony. “He says he is their king.”

Meanwhile below, a note of suspicion: “King? Who speaks of kings?” A few heads turn, only a few so far, thankfully. “Does Helblindi choose this moment to claim what we have not given?”

“Say rather, your leader.” What he lacks in plausibility, Loki makes up for in volume, and fortunately most of the massed warriors did not hear his first words anyhow. “It is I, Helblindi.” From somewhere comes a flaming arrow – But of course, Thor thinks, because Clint does not know this is an ally who speaks. – and he reaches effortlessly to catch it, before it strikes home. “Hear me, for we must act quickly.”

The Aesir understand the tongues of all the Nine Realms, but his friends are not so gifted. Beside Thor, Tony watches, confused, and Clint's arrow is a potent reminder that others of their team watch so as well. And the reinforcements arrive from Virgina, Thor thinks, what then? Will Fury lead an attack that will fell his brother?

Loki has the attention of most of the Jotnar by now though. Massed in the street between the two Midgardian buildings, Thor can see rank after rank of blue bodies, all pointed toward the balcony. “Who is he?” He hears mumbles coming from them. “Did he say he was King?” “Son of the King, that's what I heard....”

“Listen!” A note of anger in Loki's voice this time. “I have news from Asgard. And you waste your time questioning your leader, we will all be destroyed.”

More silence. Thor hears only a few mumbled questions now. Another arrow flies, striking down a warrior just past Loki. Clint's moved position, but still he attacks. This new victim seems to convince the rest of the Jotnar, for they fall completely silent now, and their attention is fixed on Loki.

“Even now balance between the realms is shifting.” Loki pitches his voice high, to be heard to the far end of the mass of the Jotnar. “Odin's strength returns. Soon the bridge between this realm and ours will be gone. Would you be trapped here, my subjects?”

The Jotnar mumble amongst themselves again. “Trapped,” Thor hears some of them say. From others, it is “Subjects? Did he call us his subjects?”

“My _troops_ , I say.” Never daunted, Loki continues. “Would you be trapped here? Even now the mortals ...Ah, the _Midgardians_ assemble. This is but the first of their forces that we face now.”

“What then?” One warrior, toward the front of the mass of them, speaks up, his voice clear and, as he speaks, the rest fall silent to listen. He is their actual leader, Thor thinks. All depends on whether he believes Loki's deception. “You are the one who sent us to Midgard. Would you have us retreat ere we gain victory? When Laufey gave an order, he stood by it. He did not change his mind halfway through the battle.”

“How many times did Laufey lead you to defeat?” Loki raises his voice, as mumbles come anew from the crowd. “How many times were Jotun warriors killed, because they followed him into Asgard?”

Heard from the Jotnar: “He speaks truly.” “No, it was not Laufey.” “It was the kin-killer Loki, he brought us there. He killed us in cold blood...”

“All that is past.” There is the faintest note of desperation to his brother's voice. Thor, who knows him well, can hear it; he hopes it is not discernible to the Jotnar. “Laufey is dead, and it is I, Helblindi who lead you. Odin has routed our troops in Asgard. As balance shifts his way, the bridge here on Midgard disappears, and we will be trapped here if we stay. Who among you would spend the rest of your days in this unbearable, tropical heat?”

“Trapped?” Thor hears the word once, then over and over, coming from different parts of the crowd. Then, directed at the one who was the real leader, “You spoke not of us staying here.” 

“Some will have to stay.” His voice falters a little. “If we conquer this realm, we must control it.”

“We will not conquer, for we cannot.” Loki's voice again. “The balance shifts, I tell you my warriors. I made my plans expecting it to become stable, but instead it moves in Asgard's favor again.”

“ _Asgard._ ” It sounds like all of the Jotnar speak at once, and they turn, blue bodies facing Loki's in a mass.

“And we return now, we have yet a chance to defeat our true enemy. Have you a foe among the Midgardians, my warriors? They are mere mortals and unworthy of our smallest interest. Let us move while we still can, while we have yet a chance to defeat Odin. And we do it, all the Nine Realms will be ours without battle regardless.”

His brother has always been convincing. But how long has it been since Thor saw him use his skills for good? ...For a cause they both believed in? Just for a moment he wonders: For what cause does his brother fight? He cannot surely have decided that he cares enough about Midgard to protect it? No matter though. For now it is enough that they fight on the same side again.

“Your words make sense.” A tone of acknowledgment, albeit grudging, in the leader's voice now. “Mayhap you are Helblindi. I know not who else you would be. Certainly if the bridge is dissolving, we must go while we still have a chance for victory...”

Whatever more he was going to say is drowned in shouts: “Victory! Victory against the invader Odin!” A massive cheer from the crowd, and shouts of “The Aesir shall fall,” and “Up Jotunheimr!” ring from the crowd. What lies at the other end of the bridge they are returning to, Thor finds himself wondering suddenly, and he remembers with a troubled feeling, that his brother once tried to destroy all of Jotunheimr. No matter though, for he cannot let it matter. This invasion must be stopped, and who else among them but Loki can stop it?

Below in the crowded street, the massed Jotnar turn. “Lead us!” Thor hears shouts. “Take us back to the bridge, Helblindi.” The bridge. Which Loki hasn't seen. Can his brother find it with only his magic?

“My lieutenant and I shall lead.” Loki puts a hand on the shoulder of the original, true leader, who actually knows the way, and Thor realizes that yet again, he has underestimated his cleverness. “We go, my people.”

They do go ...and to where, Thor wonders again? As their heads move away in the opposite direction from Midgard's Capitol, it occurs to him that, like the Jotnar, Loki may be stranded wherever they are going as well. Is there a plan to this, or is it simply unavoidable? It occurs to him suddenly that he may have fought alongside his brother for the last time. That it should have happened just after their long separation seems to make the prospect all the worse.

“What is to become of them?” he murmurs.

“The Jotnar?” Tony's voice startles. He'd forgotten his friend was beside him. “I didn't think your people cared about them. Thought you saw them as a pest, like rats, or a really bad case of jock-itch.”

“Just Loki,” Thor says. “The rest of us... Well, they are foes to us, but different from others only in the amount of time it has taken to subdue them.”

A short snort: Unamused laughter, with something almost like pity in it. “Well it looks like Reindeer Games is about to get rid of the pest problem once and for all. – Didn't you say that he was one of these things?”

Thor nods.

“That's what I thought.” An answering nod from Tony. “Yeah, he's taking out _all_ the pests, isn't he?”

_Himself included..._ The unspoken words hover between them, and they watch the Jotnar retreat in silence.


	19. Aftermath of an Invasion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His comrades have won, Midgard is saved yet again, but there is one thing that spoils Thor's happiness.

Retreating, the Jotnar leave surprisingly little damage. Some trees, and some things like metal trees with glass fruit at the top, that the others call “light poles”, are uprooted. There are a few cars smashed. One building, the one Tony calls the “Supreme Court”, has a hole in the wall that wasn't there before. By the time the Washington police finally arrive, that is all there is see though, just the destruction, and no more towering, blue-skinned enemies. 

Steve takes a leadership role, organizing them, and the Avengers too, to clean up what damage there is. Thor finds himself carrying smashed cars to a place called an “impound lot”. This, he understands from an Officer Conner, is so that their owners can find them, destroyed though they may be. Tony takes charge of some wires that have fallen. The electricity inside them is deadly, he explains, and must be stopped, lest mortal passers-by get harmed. Steve himself is at the forefront. He carries trees, strings yellow tape to keep people away from the broken place in the Supreme Court wall and the destroyed staircase that connected the Capitol with the street below.

By the time SHIELD arrives with the soldiers from Virginia, there is nothing left for them to do. Director Fury surveys the scene, up close, and from the balcony next to the Capitol. “You did good, people. How did you get those Frost-things to leave?”

“It was my brother who did it.” Doubt crawls in Thor's chest as he says it. Where is Loki now? Can he get back from Jotunheimr before the bridge disappears. What will happen to him if he is trapped there, and the Jotnar discover his identity?

The Director stares. “Your brother. What brother?”

“Loki. It was Loki.” What if the bridge leads not to Jotunheimr? What if it dissolves while Loki and the Jotnar are still crossing? Will his act of heroism cause Loki to fall into the Void again?

“Loki.” Director Fury echoes his words. He looks around, searches confirmation from Natasha, Clint, Steve and Tony (Bruce, himself again, lies unconscious in the back of an ambulance). “ _Really_?”

“Really.” The confirmation comes from Tony. “You can believe me, I saw it happen. Yep, it was Reindeer Games, all right.”

His brother just saved their ruler's city, he may die because of what he did for Midgard, and yet he cannot be called by his proper name? “His name is Loki.” Thor expects the anger that fills his voice, but not the tears just behind it.

Tony looks down, seeming subdued. “Yeah, you're right,” he says. “Sorry for being a dick. – Seriously though, Fury. He did it. He disguised himself as one of the Frosty Giants, and he led them all back to Jotun-whatever-it's-called. We're not exactly sure how he's going to get back.”

“That's his problem, isn't it?” Fury turns away. “Anyway guys, good job.” He studies the Capitol again, looks around once more as Midgardians pass by, moving up and down the street just as they did before, only stopping now, as they go, to take pictures of the scene where the invasion was. “Word from the Pentagon is you're getting official status for this, probably a Presidential commendation.”

“And my brother?” Why he's pressing it, Thor does not know. Midgard does not care for the fate of one who once caused such destruction here, the Director has made that quite obvious. It is “an eye for an eye,” as the Midgardians put it: Loki's action is recompense for damage he caused, and if he dies carrying it out, what is that compared to the many people he killed?

“ _We'll_ remember him.” To his credit, Steve sounds troubled. “He died saving innocent lives. That's a hero's death, whatever he was before.”

“Yeah, well you don't even know if he's dead yet.” An awkward pat from Tony's metal-gloved hand. “I saw him turn into a Frost-thing. Your brother's got some serious mojo.”

“At least he didn't kill anybody this time,” Clint puts in, as if that helps.

“He died a hero.” Thor repeats Steve's words. In the end, they are the ones that matter. Father will be proud. Loki will surely have earned his place in Valhalla by his actions. Someday they will be reunited there...

“Stop saying that, Thor. He didn't fuckin' die.” Now Tony starts to sound impatient. “This is _Reindeer Games_ we're talking about, remember? He took the worst the Hulk could give him and bounced right back up again like it was nothing. I'll bet we'll go back to the penthouse and he'll be there acting like a colossal jerkwad to all of us just like before. ...Which reminds me, that's where we should go, is home. Only maybe could we pick up some food on the way? I'm starving.”

“Yeah me too,” says Clint. “I could go for a pizza.”

From Tony: “And some beer.”

Thor nods agreement. “We will drink a toast to my brother.” _To his memory,_ he wants to say, but mouthing the words is too close to having them proven true.


	20. Loki Returns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As usually happens, it turns out that Tony Stark was right.

“You're like, The Avengers.” The stout, bearded man who greets them when they enter the “Pizza restaurant” reminds him of Volstagg, at least if his old friend were somehow to be dressed in an apron and a backwards-facing “cap of the baseball”. He beams like Volstagg, and he throws his arms wide like him. And his restaurant is filled with delicious smells that would have had Thor's old friend on his knees giving thanks in moments. “Come in!” bellows the stout restaurant-master. “My pizzeria is your pizzeria. Anything I have, I mean _anything_... It's not on the menu? Go ahead and ask. – You know we're right the fuck in-line with where the invasion was? If you hadn't stopped those Frost-monsters...”

 _Monsters_... Thor's stomach gives an uncomfortable twist. He interrupts their host's welcome. “It was not we who stopped them, but my brother.”

A look of confusion, then their host turns to Tony. “Thor has a brother?”

Nod of Tony's head, hair still tousled from his iron helmet. “You remember that thing in Manhattan last year? The portal and the alien army? That was his brother's.”

“Only this time he helped us,” Clint puts in. “God knows why. He must've figured there was something in it for him.”

“He did it for Bruce,” Natasha says. A small shudder. “I don't even want to go into what _that_ means.”

“Yeah well he did it anyway, right?” Their host looks a little shaken by all the information. “And now I've got the real Avengers in here, who just saved my fuckin' restaurant. _Anything_ I've got is yours, you just name it. If it weren't for you guys...” – A nervous look. “And Thor's brother ...I guess... – this place wouldn't be here any more. Hey Thor, your brother meeting you guys here? Because he can totally have whatever he wants too.”

 _My brother is dead._ As fast as he thinks the words, Thor pushes them back again. Loki is not dead. Tony is right, he has survived far worse than this. ...Whatever the _this_ is that he is currently surviving. ...It's the not-knowing that's hardest.

“He'll be here,” Steve says. “He had to finish up some stuff first. I guess he'll have what the rest of us are having.” He surveys the glass-shielded counter where their host has spread his wares. “Guys, what do you say to two of those cheese pies, and one with pepperoni, oh, and a white pie. It's been too long since I had one of those. – I guess you'll want anchovies or something else weird, huh Tony?”

“Weird's changed since your day, Cap.” Tony looks to their host. “Give us a Spicy Mexican pie, and one of the kind with the five different peppers. And a growler-pitcher of whatever's brewed closest to here. – No wait, better make it two ...at least.”

The pizzas are indeed delicious, and yet another testament to the creativity of Midgardian cooks. The beer is strong, and very cold, colder than Thor is used to drinking it. His brother with his Jotun heritage, would have no trouble, he thinks. Then, thinking it, he remembers to worry, and then he sets his second slice (from the pie with the many peppers, which Tony recommends highly) aside untasted. 

Steve nudges him. “I've seen you eat, Thor. One slice isn't enough to fill you.” His tone is concerned.

“Your brother won't come back just because you starve yourself.” Even Clint manages a little sympathy in his voice, and for some reason this troubles Thor the most.

“My brother is _not dead_! Let us cease treating this as a wake.” He grabs his slice of pizza and crams a huge bite into his mouth, chewing hard and fast. He's on the second bite before he even tastes what he's eating. Then the sting of the peppers hits, and he grabs his tankard, gulping beer which does nothing to ease the burning pain that is suddenly his tongue.

A laugh rings out. Who dares laugh? That is his first thought. His comrades, will they insult him when he is already unhappy? Surely their host would not be so inhospitable, nor the other customers so ungrateful? It is only when a narrow hand takes the pizza from him that he recognizes his brother's voice.

“Your gormandizing never ceases to amuse.” Thor looks up into green eyes that sparkle wickedly just like they used to in days past. “What did you eat to cause such a reaction?”

\--------------------

“B-Brother?” Standard, expected cry from the throat of the Thunderer, followed by more reactions, equally surprised, from his comrades. “Loki?” “Loki!” “What the fuck! Reindeer Games!” By Odin's beard, the least thing surprises these mortals (and his brother, because he's a dunderhead). Had they not realized by now what he is capable of? Did they really think a mob of blue brutes could hold him?

One minute he appears, – The aroma in the place is tempting, reminiscent of, but better than the pizza he shared with Banner in Gallup. – the next, Loki is lifted a foot off the ground by the enthusiasm of Thor's hug. He is being squeezed tight by two brawny Aesir arms so he can barely breathe, much less get a word out. He is being stared at by four pairs of Avenger-eyes ...and by the eyes of every other misbegotten mortal in the place.

“Brother, you have no faith.” Loki gets it out like a gasp. “How many times have I shown what I can do, and yet you persist in underestimating me?” Freed from Thor's iron grip at last, he lets out the breath he'd been holding.

“I feared you were dead.” There is nothing but simple emotion in the Thunderer's voice. 

“Yes, well I wasn't. As should have been obvious.” The lump that comes to his throat as he speaks is unexpected. Loki looks into his brother's eyes, but instead of the doglike foolishness he expected, he sees only love. Embarrassed, he turns away, surveying the food on the table. “Which of these pathetic mortal foods is closest to edible?”

“Not so fast, Reindeer Games.” Is that _friendliness_ he hears in Stark's voice? And is that _Barton_ , of all people, pushing a mug of beer his way? “We want to know how you got back. I thought you said the bridge was dissolving.”

 _He said_ , yes. The iron man still has a lot to learn about Loki Liesmith.

“Thor said those Frost-things would kill you if they found out who you were.” The soldier, the one called Steve, hands him a slice of pizza. “You can't just lead the whole army of them back to their own realm, then laugh it off like it was nothing.”

A nod from Stark. “We want the story. Come on, spill.”

Disorienting experience: Ever before, he's had but to open his mouth, to have all Thor's mortal friends demanding he close it again. And now they want him to talk? Clustered around the table, they stare with children's eyes, eager for a tale of adventure. He could oblige them. Oh, he could oblige all right, and spin tales that would make their eyes pop and Stark's hair turn the rest of the way white... Actually, he couldn't. He has little practice, telling tales of adventure. It was never his tales the other warriors wanted, back on Asgard. They wanted to hear of might and daring, not of magic and “cowardly” deception. 

“I lied about the bridge,” Loki says “It's dissolving, but not as quickly as I told the Jotnar. We returned and I found the real Helblindi there, and with news of their defeat in Asgard. With the rabble mourning this double defeat, I was able to assume the form of a common warrior and slip away.”

“Rabble?” Strange look from Steve, as he hands Loki another slice of pizza. “You mean the ordinary people of Jotunheimr?”

Loki takes the pizza, surprised to notice he's already finished his first slice. A nod. “I would not call them 'people', but brutes and monsters.”

“A long time ago,” – Steve takes a slice for himself. – “I was sent to a country called Germany, that had been fighting its neighbors off and on for a hundred years. Everyone told me the people there were nothing but brutes – Huns, that was the word for them. – but when I got there, they were just people, like the folks at home.”

So nice: An “interesting” old war-story.

“You better get used to it, Loki.” From Stark, as if he knows anything besides drinking, and his precious “tech”. “If you write your relatives off as all-bad, you're basically writing yourself off too. That's not a good road to go down.”

“Fine, they are not monsters. I am quite sorry I removed them from your company.” Thor's mortal friends apparently differ little from his companions on Asgard. With either group, criticism of Loki lies just below the surface. The only difference is what he is to be criticized for, whether for cowardice by the Aesir, or for ...whatever it is the Avengers seem to be accusing him of doing. ...For not liking the sweet, cuddly Jotnar enough, apparently.

“Come friends, this is no time for serious conversation.” Thor's sunny optimism is welcome interruption. It saves him having to rip the heads off all his friends. “My brother was lost and now he's found. He was dead and now he is alive.”

“And he sent the Frost Giants back to Jotun-whatever-it-is.” Stark raises his mug, beer foaming onto his hand. “Which is more than the rest of us were able to do.”

“And with so few casualties.” The soldier raises a mug as well. “You can call it 'lying' if you want, Loki, but you saved a lot of people with your lies. And a lot of Frost-Jotuns as well.”

Was that a compliment?

“It's called _persuasion_ ,” says know-it-all Stark, “and sometimes it succeeds where hand-to-hand combat would fail. I don't know about the rest of you, but I wouldn't mind having Loki help us out with his persuasion again sometime ...at least if he's given up on taking over the world.”

...And was he just invited to join the Avengers?

Suddenly Loki doesn't know where to look. He grabs a slice of pizza, the kind with the many peppers that was his brother's downfall, and bites hugely. After that his reddened cheeks at least make sense. ...And his moistened eyes. Because a god does not cry, not over the words of mere mortals. 

“I think Bruce would like that,” Natasha says. The words feel unexpectedly good.

“Yeah well, I wouldn't,” says Barton, _of course_. Less predictable, when he adds: “But I can work with people I don't like, if I have to.”

“Where is Bruce?” It's only when his brother says the words, that Loki realizes he was thinking the same thing. Has he also begun to _care_ about these mortals?

“He was unconscious.” From Natasha. “Maybe they took him to the hospital. – You think we should go back and get him?”

“I could go,” Thor offers through a bite from his tenth – Or his fourteenth? – slice of pizza. “I am good at getting in and out of Midgardian hospitals.”

“Well if we're talking covert operations here,” Natasha begins.

“...Then we should send Loki.” Stark finishes her sentence for her. “He's better at disguise than any of us. – And by the way,” with a glance the Trickster's way, “we're going to have a conversation about a certain green-eyed babe with a taste for pecan pie lattes. – Only you realize we're just going to piss Bruce off if we make a lot of fuss about this.”

“Yeah.” A nod from Steve. 

Another nod from Stark. “He's sensitive when the Hulk's involved. I don't get why; if I could throw tantrums that big and get away with it... – And don't any of you say I do already. – But yeah. I'll send a car to get him when he's released. Pepper can take care of it. Tact's her middle name. Meanwhile the rest of the team waits at the penthouse, right?”

The team? Not the team and Loki, but _the team_? He is part of the team now? Loki finds he has no desire to object, or to point out that he is above serving alongside mere mortals. – He has no desire even, to plot downfall for the Avengers from amongst their midst. Instead, he is wordless, the Silvertongue silenced again.

His brother picks up the slack. “ _All_ of us,” he says, “yes. Midgard, and Asgard's mightiest heroes, and my brother, who is a hero, despite his protestations.”

And pizza is eaten, and beer is drank. Various Avengers fly back to Manhattan in various ways (to meet Loki, who has of course already arrived there). And it is takes the Trickster until late the next day, and well after Banner has returned safe from the hospital in Washington, to think of a suitable retort for his brother's words. And then, he does not give it.


End file.
